1920-03-09

FIRST READINGS.


[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 4, to incorporate the Armor Life Assurance Company.-Mr. Griesbach.
Bill No. 5, respecting the Burrard Inlet Tunnel and Bridge Company.-Mr. Crowe.
Bill No. 6, respecting the Canadian Mining Institute, and to change its name to " The Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy.-Mr. Fripp.

[Stage Direction]
Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the year ended March 31, 1919; Report of the Dominion Experimental Farms for the year ended March 31, 1919; Report upon the Agricultural Instruction Act, 1918-1919.-Hon. Mr. Tolmie.

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. JOSEPH ARCHAMBAULT (Chambly-Vercheres):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to call the attention of the Government to a most important and urgent matter. I am informed from reliable sources that the ice jam on the St. Lawrence is much deeper this year than ever before. At Cap Rouge, above Quebec, there is a gorge, and I am informed the ice has frozen 40 feet deep, and that the *water behind has risen 6 feet higher in some places. There is an ice barrage. If this barrage is not immediately broken up there will be serious floods from that point up to Montreal. We had ice-breakers that were built for that purpose. I understand that the "Earl Grey," the "Minto" and the "John D. Hazen" were sent to Russia in 1915-1916 and 1917.


Mr. SPEAKER:: Order. The hon. gentleman is beyond question bringing forward a subject of public importance, but he should not attempt to enter into any argument. If he will state the ground work and put his question, he will be quite in order.


Joseph Archambault: The "Montcalm" is at Halifax and I understand the "Lady Grey" is not powerful enough to break the ice there. I am informed that unless dynamite is used to break the ice very serious floods will occur with resulting damage. What I wish to know is if the Minister of Marine and Fisheries (Mr. Ballantyne) is aware of the facts, and what steps he intends to take.
Hon. C. C. BALLANTYNE. The hon. member for Chambly-Verchferes (Mr. Ar chamhault) was good enough yesterday to give me notice of the question he has just asked. I am afraid that the information that has reached the hon. member is not accurate, and I shall be very glad indeed to give the information that the' hon. gentleman asks for. First of all I wish to say that the first part of the winter was, not very cold, and no ice bridge formed on the St. Lawrence up to Nicolet Traverse (a distance of 90 miles above Quebec), until the last week in January. The ice jammed several times during the winter at Cap Rouge-the Quebec Bridge site-which is considered the key of the ice situation, but was successfully broken up by the ice-breaker " Lady Grey." With no ice bridge formed at this point, there is no fear of disastrous floods occurring above. The channel is now clear of ice up to a point near Portneuf, 35 miles

above Quebec, where the "Lady Grey" is working to-day and is making good progress.
I will not take up the time of the House by going into further details except to say that the conditions this year, I am happy to inform the hon. gentleman, are not much different frqm those of former years. The "Lady Grey" hopes to reach Cap Charles, 50 miles above Quebec, very shortly. In regard to the "Montcalm," I think hon. members are aware that first of all she had to go to Belle Isle to take the place of the steamer "Arranmore" that was wrecked, and to relieve the lighthouse people there. She afterwards had to go to the assistance of the Canadian Government steamer "Canadian Spinner " that was stuck in the ice below Father Point. After releasing that steamer she proceeded to the Magdalen Islands carrying provisions for the distressed people upon those islands. Owing to the severity of the weather and the thickness of the ice she was delayed a month in making that voyage. She returned to the city of Halifax requiring repairs, especially propeller blades, but owing to the wreck of the steamer "Bohemian," she had to go to her assistance. The "Montcalm" is now in Halifax and will go on the-dry-dock as soon as possible. I do not anticipate any serious results from floods this spring-no one can accurately tell-but I am pleased to say that the "Lady Grey" is working so well and-that the ice bridge is broken.



PEACE WITH ENEMY COUNTRIES.

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Air. A. R. McMASTER (Brome):: I would
like to inquire from the Acting Prime Minister whether a state of Peace now exists between the Dominion of Canada and its former enemies? If not, I would ask what action is necessary on the part of the Government to bring about that consummation so devoutly to be wished, and, if it is necessary to have a Declaration, or an Order in Council passed for that purpose, how soon may we expect such customary action on the part of the Government.


Sir GEORGE FOSTER (Acting Prime Alinister):: In answer to my hon. friend
may I congratulate him on retaining his voice after his excursion to the far West. A state of Peace actually and presently exists between Canada and the Empire, and Germany. A state of Peace will be proclaimed between the Allies and former enemies as each Treaty of Peace comes to its final ratification and the Proclamation

is made. I cannot think of anything that will hurry this along, except that perhaps the hon. gentleman might introduce a resolution.


Andrew Ross McMaster: May I explain to the
right hon. gentleman who leads the House that this is not a mere rhetorical matter or one of mere abstract interest, but I am informed that in one of the departments which my right hon. friend is in control of- I think the Patents Department is under the jurisdiction of the Department of Trade and Commerce-


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I have to inform the
hon. gentleman that he is taking a course which he may not pursue on the Orders of the Day.



THE GOVERNOR GENERAL'S SPEECH.

[Stage Direction]
. ADDRESS IN REPLY.
Consideration of the motion of Mr. Hume Cronyn for an address to His Excellency the Governor General in reply to his Speech at the opening of the Session, and the proposed amendment of the Hon. Mackenzie King, thereto resumed from Monday, March 8.
Hon. CHARLES MURPHY (Russell):: Mr. Speaker, at the outset I desire to associate myself with the congratulations that have been offered by hon. gentlemen who have preceded me in this debate to the mover and the seconder of the Address in reply to the speech from the Throne. If I do not dwell upon the speeches of these two hon. gentlemen, or upon those of other hon. gentlemen who have followed them in this discussion, it is because I have a good deal to say on other subjects and I do not want to occupy the time of the House at undue length.
Let me, then, Sir, at once begin by implementing a promise that I made to this House some four or five months ago. It will be. recalled that in September last, during the session that was then in progress and while I was absent from Canada, the President of the Privy Council (Hon. Mr. Rowell) delivered a speech which he and his kept press were pleased to describe as a reply to a speech that I had made about eighteen months previously. It will be further recalled that when I returned to the city I spoke in this House on a question *of privilege, and as the rules of the House prevented me from saying all that I wanted to say I gave the House an assurance that .1 would return to the subject at the next session of Parliament. That, Mr. Speaker,
it is my purpose to do in extenso this afternoon.
Before dealing with what the hon. gentleman (Mr. Rowell) said last session it is desirable that the sequence of facts leading up to his speech should he first presented to the House. Let me then state briefly what had occurred prior to September last. During the last general elections when the anti-Laurier, anti-Quebec and anti-Catholic madness was at its height, the President of the Privy Council fanned the flames of sectarian hate iand added fresh fuel to the fire by a speech which he made at North Bay on December 6, 1917. In the course of his inflammatory harangue the hon. gentlemen indicted the people of Quebec for their alleged lack of sacrifice, and he then made an attack on the members of the Religious Orders from France who had been in Canada and whom he falsely said had not gone back to help their Mother Country in the war. As reported in the "Toronto Globe" the hon. gentleman, after denouncing the attitude of the Quebec Nationalists towards the war, said:
In this attitude they were undoubtedly encouraged and abetted by the members of the Religious Orders from France who found an asylum in Canada and used that asylum to undermine Canada's strength in the struggle.
Believing this statement to be made with knowledge of the facts, and that it was true, many newspapers and speakers who were supporting Union Government used it throughout the country, and in this way spread the flames which the President of the Privy Council had deliberately kindled. A short time after the election the President of the Privy Council was written to and asked to give the proofs in support of his attacks on the French Religious. His reply was a brief letter in- which he said he was investigating the facts. In other words, Mr. Speaker, he admitted over his own signature that although he had made a wholesale charge of treason against a body of men several weeks previously, he did not know whether the charge was true or false; -but the elections being over, and his purpose accomplished, he was going to take time to inquire whether his statement was true or false. I do not pause here, Sir, to use the only terms that would fittingly describe the self-confessed turpitude of the hon. gentleman-in fact I need not do so in view of the judgment the public has already pronounced upon him. In addition to the written request that I have mentioned, the hon. gentleman was publicly challenged by two newspapers-the Catholic


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: The hon. member is exceeding the rules as well as the amenities of debate in attributing untruthfulness to another hon. member.


Charles Murphy: I bow to your ruling,
Mr. Speaker, and I shall observe the amenities of debate in what further I have to say.
I was proceeding to state, Sir, that the hon. gentleman sank to a depth that was never plumbed by Mr. Pecksniff or Uriah Heap when he added-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Charles Murphy: Those names seem
strange to isome hon. gentlemen on the opposite side of the House.-when he added:
If I had known of the position of those members of the French clergy I should have paid a tribute to them.
. The Catholic Record of January 4, 1919, dealt with the hon. gentleman and his Bowmanville speech in the following article:
Mr. Rowell vs. Mr. Rowell. .
In our comments last week on Mr. Rowell's charge against the members of French religous orders living in Canada we took the report of the Free Press as quoting his very words so far as he touched, in his Bowmanville speech, on his famous-or infamous-accusation. The Free Press report we find was incomplete.
Before us now is the Globe's full verbatim report of Mr. Rowell's Bowmanville address, and we shall quote his every word of explanation or justification.
Our readers will have noted that we have always confined our comments on Mr. Rowell's North Bay speech to this single charge against the French religious orders. Cleverly enough, perhaps, for the audience, as well as that portion of the wider public to which he addressed himself, Mr. Rowell first appeals to anti-Bourassa and anti-Quebec prejudice, reiterates his general charge against the clergy of Quebec, deliberately and dishonestly transfers some of the very words of his particular charge against the French religious orders to the general charge against the French-speaking clergy of Quebec:
"The substance of my statement about the French-speaking clergy in Quebec was that the majority of them' were supporters of Mr. Bourassa'in his attitude on the war, and that in the course they were pursuing they were undermining Canada's strength in the struggle
The words we have italicized referred, in Mr. Rowell's North Bay speech, solely and exclusively to the members of the French religious orders who had found an asylum in Canada. It must be admitted that Mr. Rowell is a
good "mixer"-when he has reasons for not being straightforward.
Then the sometimes Liberal leader poses theatrically as the bold and fearless champion of free criticism of any class of citizens.
"If their objection was to my discussing the question at all. then I can only say that this country does not and will not recognize any immunity of the clergy from just and fair criticism of their acts as citizens or residents of Canada."
As no one ever hinted at jOX thought of claiming any such immunity the speaker delivered a knockout blow to this straw man which he had set up to show his prowess-and his courage.
"Fair and just criticism"-that is an important limitation to all criticism. It is fair and just criticism to quote,-in Mr. Rowell's own words,-the most serious accusation ever made against any class in Canada's population; to point out that if true the Government have a duty in the matter that cannot be shirked without such moral cowardice and betrayal of trust as would brand them as accessories after the fact to the alleged monstrous abuse of hospitality charged against the immigrant French religious; to demand, therefore, that the allegation publicly made by a public %man be substantiated ; or if made under misapprehension of the facts or misinformation, then for the sake of decency, honour, truth and justice, public and private, that the charge be withdrawn, the amende honourable made, and the injury repaired.
Mr. Rowell makes a high patriotic virtue of his long silence in face of the peremptory challenge to prove or retract. He brings in Mr. Bourassa's name at every turn: "Mr. Bourassa and those who think with him" is his favourite way of using the proverbial herring.
"While the war was on," asserts this high-minded patriot, "I ignored all these attacks." Yes, just such "attacks" as the Kaiser repelled when he inaugurated his war of self-defense! Mr. Rowell is even less frank than the Kaiser. The patriotic and long-suffering Liberal-Unionist leader conveniently forgets that it was he who made the attack, a wanton attack, an attack which he has never justified, against a whole class of Canada's population. He gently and virtuously insinuates that he has been wantonly attacked and plainly boasts that it was from patriotic motives alone he remained silent. Oh Spartan patriotism!
So far as Mr. Bourassa and the clergy and laity of Quebec are concerned they have their press, their full representation in Parliament, and are well able to take care of themselves. We have never troubled about them; Mr. Rowell is as disingenuous here as elsewhere in insinuating that it is only sympathizers with Mr. Bourassa and his Nationalist party who called him to account for his public accusations. Mr. Rowell of course knows better; but he is playing to the gallery.
The charge which we challenged Mr. Rowell to prove was this:
"In this attitude," added Mr. Rowell, "they were undoubtedly encouraged and abetted by the members of the religious orders from France, who found an asylum in Canada, and used that asylum to	undermine Canada's strength
in the	struggle."	.This	is a specific	accusation	against thereligious from France; it is a sweeping charge	without	any	reservation	whatsoever
against these men, all of them or at any rate as a class. If any doubt remained as to the general application of this sweeping charge Mr. Rowell cleared the minds of his hearers and readers most effectually by adding:
"It Is a misfortune that they did not follow the example of the priests of the Catholic Church in France, who threw themselves into the struggle of their people to preserve their national existence, and by their courage and sacrifice won for themselves a new place in tne hearts of the French people."
Challenged to substantiate so grave a charge Mr. Rowell remained silent; confronted with the statistics adduced iby Mr. Murphy in Parliament Mr. Rowell was dumb.
These statistics proved incontrovertibly that the maligned French religious who found an asylum in Canada not only emulated the priests of France, but by their courage and sacrifice, by their unselfish devotion to their beloved France whence they had been exiled, they wrote the most sublime chapter in the sublime record of patriotism during the Great War. We reprint in this issue that portion of Mr. Murphy's speech which dealt with these heroic dead and no less heroic living Frenchmen to whom Canada will ever have been proud of having opened wide her hospitable gates. Their glorious record cannot be read and reread without a thrill of pride by every Catholic, by every Canadian.
Nevertheless these slandered dead and slandered living heroes Mr. Rowell allowed to rest under his baseless calumny for a full year. At 'last in his Bowmanville speech he makes this allusion to them:
"In order, however, to make political capital and stir up religious and racial feeling against Union Government, it is suggested that my references covered the French reservists who were members of religious orders, and who, when called to the colours by their Government, returned to France and fought as members of the French army. My references were not to men who had gone forth to fight but to men who stayed at home, men who were in the province of Quebec during the war, supporting Mr. Bourassa. Of the men who went forth to fight none can speak in too high terms."
And this_ is all that Mr. Rowell feels called upon in honour and justice to say in explanation or justification of his wanton and unwarranted attack on the gallant religious, " a body of men," to quote Mr. Murphy when marshalling the facts to rout Mr. Rowell's slanders, " whose courage, devotion to duty and self sacrifice in the present war stamp them as worthy to follow in the footsteps of that noble band of French missionaries who first made this land known to Europe and blazed the way for its colonization and development."
And the reason that even this tenuous, disingenuous, quasi-retraction, quasi-justification was so long delayed was that Canada's part in the war might not be impeded!
Note the impudent charge and the base appeal in the opening sentence; and then in what immediately follows:
" The trouble is, not that I misrepresented anybody, but that I told the truth about the situation then existing in the province of Quebec. An explanation of the campaign of misrepresentation now being pursued by Mr. Bourassa and those associated with him in this province is that they hope by representing that their faith is attacked, and by posing as defenders of that faith, to unite behind them in
fMr. Murphy.]
one party, for political purposes and political action, all those who share their religious views."
Dr. Johnson is sometimes quoted in a more comprehensive sense than he intended when he said that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel; but that honest and sham-hating old Briton could find to-day in Mr. Rowell's speech an apt illustration of his meaning. " Patriotism " and prejudice, partizan, racial and religious, are the last refuge of Mr. Rowell.	.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Order. There is an imputation in the latter portion of the letter editorial, or newspaper extract from which the hon. member is quoting which he might not himself make in the ordinary course of debate. The hon. member may go no further in reading from an extract than he could go if the remarks were his own. I sincerely hope that the hon. member will, during the further course of his remarks, adhere more closely to the amenities and the technicalities, if I may so term them, of debate.


Charles Murphy: Anything which in your judgment, Mr. Speaker, is objectionable in the editorial I quite agree should be excised. The editorial then proceeds:	-
Mr. Rowell's charge a year ago was plainly, unequivocally, directly, against the French religious resident in Canada, and against them as a class without qualification or reservation.
Now he has the effrontery to say that " in order to make political capital and stir up religious and racial feeling against the Union Government it is suggested that my references -covered the French reservists who were members of religious orders and who, when called to the colors by their government returned to France and fought as members of the French army."
When Mr. Rowell meets Voltaire in the Elysian fields the famous French infidel will greet the Christian statesman from Canada as a man after his own heart-" l'Audace l'Audace, toujours PAudace ! "	-
In the first place few if any of the slandered religious were reservists. They were not obliged to return and fight in the French army-, as Mr. Rowell insinuates, though he dare not say so outright.
Mr. Rowell knew this. Mr. Rowell knows that it required a special treaty to enable the United States, after entering the war and put-ing conscription in force, to reach American citizens subject to the draft who were by accident or design in Canada or Great Britain. Mr. Rowell knows that with Ireland exempt from conscription Great Britain could not reach the tens of thousands of Englishmen subject to the draft who sought refuge in Ireland during the war.
Mr. Rowell knows that the French government, which had exiled the men whom he maligned, had no jurisdiction over them in Canada to compel them to return and fight in the French army.
If Mr. Rowell had told his audience that every single man of military age and fitness of that class which he had slandered had, in spite

of any feeling of resentment he may have felt at being expatriated, gone freely back to fight for France, that a score of them had laid down their lives in that cause which he had accused them of undermining, that military honors and military orders had recognized the valor and gallantry of those who still lived, the honest feeling of even that partizan and misinformed gathering would have found expression in applause and cheers. Then he might, in the contagion of that honest and honourable and manly feeling, have found it in his heart to admit that he was ignorant of the truth when he spoke a year ago at North Bay. But, like many other politicians, Mr. Rowell has too low an opinion of the sense of decency, the sense of honor and justice, the manliness and mental [DOT]capacity of the common people if he does not realize that in honestly acknowledging his error he would stand in their estimation of mind and heart in a place which he has chosen to abdicate.
Some families gave their every member capable of bearing arms to the cause now crowned with victory. Not one of these exceeded the record of the French religious resident in Canada.
By their action at the beginning of the war in rushing to the colors and giving a tremendous impetus to Canada's effort, a magnificent inspiration to Canada's loyalty, the British-born who had chosen Canada as their home won for themselves undying honour and gratitude.
The British-born as a class, magnificent as in their record, can not equal the sublime record of the men whom Mr. Rowell accused of monstrous abuse of Canada's hospitality and of undermining the cause for which they were ready to die.
At the conclusion of his recital of the evidence which crushingly refuted Mr. Rowell's charges, Mr. Murphy on the floor of the House of Commons thus summoned their author to
retract:
" If the hon. gentleman's statements were not made for a wicked and a malicious purpose, then by every standard of public and private honour he is required to retract what he has said, to offer an apology to the living and to make reparation to the memory of the dead."
Mr. Rowell's friends can hardly be proud of the way he has attempted to measure up to the standards of public and private honour.
Upon reading that editorial, a Toronto gentleman with whom I was not then acquainted wrote me in these terms:
Toronto, January 7, 1919. The Hon. Charles Murphy,
Ottawa.
Dear Sir,-I read an article in the Catholic Record which was a summary of your reply to the Hon. N. W. Rowell's shameful allegations regarding the French Religions. I had not read his speeches but was so disgusted, although not a Catholic, at his want of fairness, I immediately sat down and wrote him a letter, a copy of which I enclose herewith.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Order. The hon. member is proceeding to quote from a letter written by a gentleman outside of the House, in which letter that gentleman attributes certain allegations to the President of the Privy Council, stating that they were shameless and also using other words which no hon. member in this House might use in debate. Much less may they be used by quoting some person outside of the House. I must ask the hon. member to delete those portions of the letter.


Charles Murphy: Very well, Sir. The enclosure that accompanied the letter which I read is as follows. It is a copy of a letter that was sent to the President of the Privy Council:
Toronto, January 7, 1919. The Hon. N. W. Rowell,
Dear Sir,-I came across the enclosed article in the Catholic Record this evening, and if the speeches in which you made the accusations referred to are correct, I am amazed, shocked and grieved that a man occupying the position in Canada you do could be wilfully guilty of such calumny. Prom the article containing the refutation of your charge, it appears you are challenged to give proof of the truth of your wicked allegations, and you remain silent. Shame on you! How can you ever hope to be great?-


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Order. One hon. member may not say anything of that character to another member of this House, and the hon. member for Russell cannot shield himself behind a letter from some person outside of this House. I must ask the hon. member to withdraw those words " shameless " and others of like character, whether they be written or spoken.


Charles Murphy: I will see that these are deleted from the report. The letter proceeds :
If you have done wrong, be a man and apologize. I am not a Catholic nor party politician, but a British subject who loves fair play.
Yours truly,
(Sgd.) Archibald Browne.
Any comment on that enclosure is quite unnecessary. I need only add that since 'the date of the correspondence I have learned that the writer is a sturdy Scotchman whose sense of decency and fairness was so outraged by the conduct of the President of the Council-


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Order. The hon. member is going very far beyond the rules of debate when he uses such language in the fcourse of his comment on a letter written by a person outside of this House.


Charles Murphy: Surely my allusion to a gentleman outside of this House does not bring the remark within the rules of the House when I state the reason that this gentleman had for writing the letter which I have just read.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: The hon. member cannot shield himself behind any lemark made by some person outside this House. What he may not say himself, he certainly may not quote.


Charles Murphy: I am not trying to
shield myself behind any remarks made by anybody in or out of the House, and I think I may appeal, Sir, to your knowledge of me to justify that statement. I do not want to use in debate any language that is not in accordance with the rules of debate, and if in your judgment Sir, anything contained in the letters that I have read should not be repeated, then they may be deleted from the copy.
Thus matters stood until last session, when, during my absence and while the debate on the Address was in progress, the President of the Privy Council for the first time in the House professed to deal with my speech delivered eighteen months previously. What the hon. gentleman said in the House was largely a repetition of what he had said in his Bowmanville address of December, 1918, and before I deal with certain specific utterances of the hon. gentleman, I want to point out that neither in his Bowmanville speech nor in his speech of last session does the hon. gentleman dispute the correctness of the following charges contained in my speech of March 19, 1918:
1.	That his support of the Ross Government entailed no sacrifice on his part, but on the contrary resulted in his securing- control of the reorganization of the Clergue industries at the Sault, and that he derived therefrom the profits that I described.
2.	That while the hon. gentleman acted as Provincial leader, there was a fund of about $3,750 raised to enable the hon. gentleman and his press agent to go on a Cook's tour to the battle front.
3.	That in his North Bay speech of December 6, 1917, the hon. gentleman garbled the facts relating to the Conservative alliance with the Nationalists of Quebec in order to conceal the fact that his present leader was in active personal alliance with the Nationalists in 1911.
4.	That he had sent as his agent to the city of London, Ontario, Colonel F. H. Deacon to induce a prominent Liberal of that city to desert the Liberal candidate by offering him as a bribe the Chairmanship of the War Purchasing Commission.
5.	That he deputed another Toronto gentleman to interview various Liberals as to whether
.they thought the public would stand the appointment to the Ontario Supreme Court Bench of a member of the present Union Government.
6.	That he sent a third Toronto gentleman to eastern Ontario to urge Liberal candidates to desert Sir Wilfrid Laurier, and that this emissary pointed out the advantages by which such treachery w'ould be awarded.
7.	That as charged by the Toronto Telegram in its issue of March 14, 1918, Mr. Robert A.

Mulholland, who had been nominated for the House of Commons in Durham county was bribed with a seat in the Senate, to make way for the hon. gentleman as a candidate in the county of Durham.
That is the indictment which in his two-speeches the hon. gentleman has not dared to challenge. It is too late for him to do so now, because no credence would be given to any belated statement he might, now make. With reference to these unchallenged charges, I have only to observe that many a man has forfeited his position in society on a much less serious indictment than the one which the hon. gentle' man has allowed to stand against him.
Now' let me examine what the hon. gentleman pretended to explain or refute in
.	his speech in the House last
4 p.m. September. Here is what he said about his North Bay charge against the members of the French religious orders (unrevised Hansard, September 17, 1919):


Mr. PROULX:: Will the minister cite the figures which were given by the hon. member for Russell as to the number of members of each religious order who crossed over and fought?


Mr. ROWELL:: My hon. friend simply anticipates the point I am coming to. At the time I spoke at North Bay I was not aware that -the French law of compulsory military service covered members of the French-speaking clergy of military age who had come to Canada, and who remained citizens of France; that they were obligated by this law to return to France for military service; and that those who were physically fit, and were not exempted temporarily or otherwise, did return to France when called by their government to do so. As I did not know this, I could not specially refer to their service, but my attitude to all who went forth to fight was clearly shown by my reference to the clergy of France. If I had known of the position of these members of the French clergy, I should have paid a tribute to them.
Further on he is reported to have spoken as follows:
Had I known that the law of military service had applied to those men and that they had gone forth to fight, I should have paid a tribute to them with greater cheerfulness than I paid the tribute to the French clergy in France.
Still further on, he is reported to have said:
I do not question the figures set out by the hon. gentleman in his speech, as illustrating the part which those men took in the struggle.
With that tissue of amazing evasions, and the hon. gentleman's failure to do what any other man in Canada would have done under similar circumstances, the Catholic Record, in its issue of October 11, 1919, deals in this fashion:

The Honourable Newton Wesley Rowell, President of the Council, has ^t last summoned up courage to refer on the floor of the House to a subject that affects his honour as a public man, his conscience as a private individual, and his personal reputation for truthfulness, decency *and fair dealing.
It is worth while recalling and setting forth in all its naked malignity the foul and unfounded charge which Mr. Rowell made against a body of men whose record in the war compels the grudging admiration of even Mr. Rowell himself. The enormity of the original and still unretracted charge and Mr. Rowell's shiftiness and evasion demand, even at the expense of brevity, a clear and full restatement of the question at issue, and an analysis of Mr. Rowell's explanation or palliation or whatever his latest pronouncement may be called.
In the course of a speech delivered at North Bay, December 6, 1917, after discussing the attitude of Quebec Nationalists, lay and clerical, Mr. Rowell added :
"In this attitude they were undoubtedly encouraged and abetted by the members of the religious orders from France, who found an asylum in Canada ahd used that asylum to undermine Canada's strength in the struggle.''
No charge of graver or more menacing import was ever preferred against any body of men in Canada; and this charge was publicly preferred by a man prominent in Canadian public life.
It was promptly and peremptorily challenged ; it was never substantiated; it was never withdrawn. It still retains, after Mr. Rowell's recent speech in the House of Commons, all its importance, all its implications, all its menace. - Its truth or its falsity floes not and can not lessen its tremendous import or alter the fact that it was made by a responsible public man now holding a high position in the Government of Canada.
If the charge were true then the Government was bound to stop this, monstrous abuse of Canadian hospitality, and by interning or deporting the ingrates prevent further undermining of Canada's strength in the struggle in which we. were then engaged ; nor, if true, can the Government evade its plain duty in the premises now that the war is over. To maintain its truth is to point out inexorably that plain governmental duty; to admit its falsity lays on Mr. Rowell, if he desires to retain his position of leadership in Canadian publjc life, the duty of clearing himself from the imputation of being a slanderer and a coward. It will be a bad thing for Canada and a worse thing for Mr. Rowell if he be allowed to escape the responsibility and evade the duty of making good his hideous accusation, or of retracting it, admitting his misinformation and making the amende honourable like an honest and honourable man.
In his recent speech in the House, which in so far as it deals with the question in issue we reproduce on page 5, he does neither the one thing nor the other; he advances not a shadow of proof of the truth of his charge, but he does not withdraw it. He writhes under the lash of Mr. Murphy's facts and figures with regard to the French religious; he makes an oblique admission that these figures prove the class he had branded as ingrates, who shamelessly abused Canada's hospitality, were "gallant men who left Canada and went overseas to fight for the cause of liberty," but he does not withdraw the charge that they "used their asylum in Canada to undermine Canada's
strength in the struggle." It is a difficult feat of shiftiness and evasion; but Mr. Rowell accomplishes it. Still one can see that he is not proud of his performance and one can admire the prudence of selecting a time when Mr. Murphy was out of the House and out of the country ; and when the rules of debate preclude all possibility of reply this session.
Mr. Rowell is progressing. On the 17th of last December, at Bowmanville, nine months after Mr. Murphy's crushing refutation of his charge against the French religious resident in Canada, he deliberately transferred the very wording of his charge against these French religious to make it read as though it applied to the French-speaking clergy who were supporters of Mr. Bourassa. That was crude work for an artist in evasion. Mr. Rowell has evidently come to be ashamed of it. In the House he read his infamous accusation verbatim. But as he comes to his reference to the priests of France he interrupts himself to exclaim:
"I am accused of belittling the work of the priests; I am magnifying the work of the priests."
Now, that is less clumsy than the Bowmanville method; but not less disingenuous. "I am accused," says this eminent patriot and long suffering, pious Christian, "of belittling the work of the priests." No, Mr. Rowell, you are not accused of anything. You, Mr. Rowell, made an infamous accusation, you admit you made of it; that accusation was proved up to the hilt to be a foul and baseless slander. You admit that, too, in a half-hearted way; you dare not deny it. You are the accuser. You pretend to deal with the accusations you made and you whine or boast-"I am accused," Then you glory in the tribute you paid to the priests of France as showing your breadth of mind and freedom from bigotry, when you know that you referred to the priests of France solely for the purpose of making their brother French priests in Canada stand out in odious contrast.
Mr. Rowell concludes his tribute to the priests of France by saying: "No one can speak disparagingly of the work of those men at that time." In. what did the conduct of the priests of France differ from that of the French priests who had found an asylum in Canada? In no single particular, save tliat the patriotism of those gallant men against whom Mr. Rowell levelled his false and foul accusation of shameless ingratitude to Canada and treason to France, stands out in higher relief than even that of their brethren of France. Those resident in Canada had that magnanimity of patriotism which impelled them, despite the fact that they were despoiled and robbed and expatriated, to go back and fight shoulder to shoulder with the priests whom Mr. Rowell professes so much to admire.
Does "the magnificent service of those gallant men" shame Mr. Rowell into withdrawing his charge? Not at all. On the contrary. These are his own words:
"At the time I spoke in North Bay I was not aware that the French law of compulsory military service covered members of the Frenchspeaking clergy of military age who had come to Canada and who remained citizens of France and that they were obligated by this law to return to France for military service; and that those who were physically fit, and were not exempted temporarily or otherwise, did return to France when called by their government to do so. As I did not know this I could not specially refer to their service. .	.	. Had I

known that the law of military service had applied to those men and that they bad gone forth to fight I should have paid a tribute to them. .	.	."
Magnanimous Mr. Rowell!
With "damned iteration" and awkward repetition Mr. Rowell seeks to convey the impression that some of these men "who were not exempted temporarily or otherwise" went back to fight for France because they were compelled by French law and the French Government to do so.
This is a clear case of deliberate suggestio falsi made with malice aforethought.
Mr. Rowell knows, as everybody knows, that the exiled French priests resident in Canada were beyond the reach of legal compulsion and beyond the jurisdiction of the French Government. These men whom Mr. Rowell accused of using their asylum in Canada to undermine Canada's strength in the struggle went freely back to France to take their heroic part, yes, to die in that very struggle. But' Mr. Rowell " did not know," he " was not aware" dr he "should have paid a tribute to them." Yet now that he does know, he still has the infinite meanness of spirit to suggest a new falsehood while failing to retract the old false accusation.
Could any one in Canadian public life other than Mr. Rowell be guilty of this:
"I have no hesitation in saying that if the general expression I used hurt the feelings of any in that I did not recognize the fine service of the men of whom I did not know, I would be the first to withdraw any such suggestion. I recognize the service they rendered. But when my friends say that I have attacked the Catholic Church I say there is no foundation whatever for that statement."
In the very pretence of dealing straightforwardly with the specific and definite charge against the French members of the religious orders he flounders into this rambling profession of ignorance, withdrawal of the "suggestion of his general expression," and denial that he attacked the Catholic Church.
But he allows the definite and specific charge to stand.
"I do not question," says Mr. Rowell, "the figures set out by the hon. gentleman in his speech as illustrating the part which these men took in the strugglebut he does not withdraw the charge that these same men used their asylum in Canada to undermine Canada's strength in the same struggle.
"Again I repeat," said the conscientious and truth-loving President of the Council, "my references at North Bay were not to the men who had gone forth to fight, but to the men who stayed at home, men who were in the province of Quebec during the war supporting Bourassa but he offers no suggestion of proof or ground for suspicion that of the religious whom he maligned as a class the members who stayed at home because of military unfitness were a whit less enthusiastic in the cause than their militarily fit brothers who fought and died in the struggle.
Should some unscrupulous politician for sordid purpose accuse certain families, whom he disliked, of shirking and slacking during the Great War; nay, should he go further and accuse those families of treason and sedition, traducing them where they were not known; and then should some well-informed friend confront the traducer with incontrovertible proofs that every single member of every slandered family was serving at the front, some of them having already given up their lives, what would happen?
	.
Amongst people with instincts of decency and fair play the traducer would be called to account. Suppose in a sanctimonious, self-sacrificing way he explained, that he did "not question the figures," and that he "did not know that they were obligated by the law of compulsory' military service," had he known "he would have paid .them a tributeand professing again his ignorance of the record of these families, expressed his willingness, if any one felt hurt, "to withdraw the suggestion of his general expression." Why, such an unscrupulous politician would be hooted down by his very friends and made either to proive his charge or withdraw it.
But a (Christian statesman may do just that sort of thing when he traduces the members of religious families, and poses as a martyr while doing so.
In his speech in the House of Commons Mr. Rowell has not substantiated his infamous charge; he does not question the accuracy of the figures which are its crushing refutation; but he has not the honesty or manliness to withdraw it. Mr. Rowell's position no honest or self-respecting man can hold. No public man can be allowed to hold it without degrading the standards of Canadian public life.
After that masterly analysis of the hon. gentleman's performance in connection with his base and unfounded charge against the living and the dead members of the French religious orders, there is nothing left for me, or for any other hon. gentleman who might be disposed to defend the living and the dead members of these orders, to say. In his speech in this House on the I7th September last the hon. gentleman put up a number'of straw men so that he might display his' prowess in knocking them down. One of them was that I had said that he had received moneys from the Secretarial Fund. I never said anything of the kind. In support of his assertion the hon. gentleman said that I had received letters of protetst from Liberals in Ontario asserting that my statement was untrue. Out of the hundreds of letters I received in approval of my speech of March 19, 1918, there were two in which it was mentioned that I had been in error in saying that the hon. gentleman had been paid out of the Secretarial Fund. One of the writers was Mr. Bowman, the former Liberal whip in Ontario, whom the hon. gentleman mentioned in his speech of September last. Upon receiving Mr. Bowman's letter, I wrote him on the 7th May, 1918, as follows :
"Let me point out that you have fallen into the error that a number of others fell into, namely, that you have interpreted my statement as being one to the effect that the gentleman referred to shared personally in the fund mentioned. I did not say that. My information was derived from three contributors to the fund, and, therefore, I was too well informed to make any such statement as the one you seem to think I did make. This correction of your misunderstanding should be made as early as pos-

sible, and that is why I am sending you this line."
What I made plain in that letter to Mr. Bowman, and what I said in this House, I repeat, namely, that the secretarial fund was raised to guarantee the hon. gentleman against any loss while engaged in his work as provincial leader. Briefly stated my argument was that in the field of provincial politics, as in other fields, the hon. gentleman had made no sacrifice because this secretarial fund had provided the money to defray the expenses of his work which otherwise he would have had to pay for out of his private means. I am going to prove by evidence that not even the hon. gentleman would controvert that what I said was absolutely correct. I hold in my hand a document with this heading:
Mr. Rowell's Secretariat, Third Annual Report.
November 1st, 1914, to October 31st, 1915.
It bears at 'the end of the signature " Main Johnson, private secretary/' I will read a few extracts from this report:
To the Committee:
Gentlemen,-I beg to submit the report ol Mr. Rowell's secretarial office for its third year.
1.	Private Secretarial Work. One of the principal duties of this office from its inception has been to do private secretarial work for Mr. Rowell in connection with the various phases of his public work. A new aspect has been given to this activity during the present year by Mr. Rowell's speeches on the war, and his visits to all parts of the country in connection with recruiting meetings. The private secretary accompanied Mr. Rowell, for example, on his visit to the Canadian Westv this summer and the office has been kept busy securing and keeping material for Mr. Rowell's use in his addresses.
In addition to these special features of the work, the secretariat has continued to do the ordinary, daily work of a political private secretary's office, both during the session of the Legislature and during the rest of the year as well.
2.	Publicity. A considerable portion of the work has consisted in complying with the request of newspapers that we keep them supplied with reports of Mr. Rowell's speeches on the war.
Then there is reference to the Liberal Club Federation of Ontario and after mentioning that this federation had been formed in 1913, the report proceeds:
The Federation has adopted as its motto the word "service"

I would like you to note that, Mr. Speaker, because I shall refer to it several times in my subsequent observations:
The Federation has adopted as its motto the word " service," a choice which has aroused much favourable comment in the press of the province.
And listen to this, Mr. Speaker. In view of -the denial of the hon. gentleman,-just listen to this paragraph:
The Liberal Club Federation has its own officers and is entirely independent of the Liberal Party or its organization. The secretarial office, however, acts in co-operation with the Federation as its business office, and the private secretary assists the officers in their activities throughout the province.
And then the gem of the lot is in the concluding paragraph, No. 5.	" Staff " is the
heading:
The office staff remains as in the two previous years-two stenographers-one for Mr. Rowell, who does Mr. Rowell's legal and political work and whose remuneration is divided between this office and Mr. Rowell's legal firm, and a stenographer for Mr. Rowell's private secretary who does political work exclusively.
Now, that report, Mr. Speaker, proves several things. In the first place, it proves to the hilt my assertion that the Secretarial Fund was for the purpose of guaranteeing the hon. gentleman against any loss while engaged in his work as Provincial header. In fact, the last paragraph of the report shows' that a portion of the fund was even used to assist the hon. gentleman in Ips private legal work. That alone, Sir, should dispose of all further pretentions about " sacrifice." What further does the report prove? It proves to the hilt my assertion, *which the hon. gentleman pretended to dispute, that the organization of which the hon. gentleman was the Provincial head was separate and distinct from the Liberal Party, and was designed to advance not the cause of Liberalism but the "uplift" fads of the hon. gentleman himself. The adoption of the word "service" as the motto of the so-called Liberal Club Federation makes it clear that it was intended that the Federation should be a kind of glorified Sunday School with the hon. gentleman as its teacher, and not a political, organization to advocate or press forward Liberal principles. And what else, Sir, does this report prove? It proves that the Secretarial Fund was used largely to advertise the war speeches of the hon. gentleman, and that he did not hesitate to use the war and all connected with it for his personal glorification. Other public men in this country did their duty quietly and at their own expense, but the hon. gentleman had his war activities financed by special funds and advertised by a special staff. More sacrifice, Mr. Speaker!
In his speech of last September the hon gentleman denied that Sir Joseph Wesley Flavelle had contributed to the Secretarial

Fund, because he said, and mark the reason, " the fund was a Liberal fund and Sir Joseph is a Conservative." But we all know, Mr. Speaker, that as between commercialized Christians a little thing like that does not stand in the way. However, the fact is that my information on that subject came from two prominent gentlemen in Toronto whose veracity and good faith I have no reason to doubt, and as they have not corrected their original statement, which I repeated, I must continue to rely upon it. But even if my informants placed iSir JSseph's name on the wrong list of contributors, that would not -be surprising in view of the number of funds raised for the purpose of assisting the President of the Privy Council to make sacrifices.	[DOT]
I have spoken of the Secretarial Fund, and the fund raised to send the hon. gentleman and his press agent on a Cook's tour to the battlefront. My further information is that there were at least two other funds into which the hon. gentleman dipped. One was a Prohibition Fund to which very generous subscriptions were made. Several of those whose names have been given to me are represented to have subscribed in amounts that reached four figures. Now, I have been told that for his services as a Prohibition speaker some years ago, the hon. gentleman was paid out of this Prohibition Fund. Then I am informed there was another fund, a campaign fund, raised by his friend Colonel F. 1?. Deacon a little over five years ago, and that subscribers to this fund in the city of Ottawa were told that it would amount to $25,000 and that it would be used to assist the hon. gentleman in his public work. Possibly Sir Joseph Wesley Flavelle's name should have been placed as a subscriber to either of these two latter funds, but if any error of that kind was made the hon. gentleman could easily rectify it by giving the House a complete list of the subscribers to all the funds from which he has benefited together with the amount of their contributions. That, Mr. Speaker, would stop all controversy and besides it would be illuminating-very illuminating, Sir, I can assure you.
Now, Sir, although the hon. gentleman has lived, breathed, and had his being in funds of various descriptions, he was not content with that; and his frugal mind, constantly running in the direction of sacrifice and service, suggested to him that a Cabinet Minister might also become a tax dodger and no one would be any the wiser. Sir, let me expose to you how he,

as a Cabinet Minister, tried to work this little game of the tax dodger. An item in the Toronto press in October, 1918, tells the first part of the story. It was this:



SEEKS TO ESCAPE INCOME TAXATION.

[Stage Direction]
Hon. N. W. Rowell Claims Exemption Because No Longer Resident.
Hon. Newton Wesley Rowell, President of the Council in the Dominion Government, is appealing to the Court of Revision against an income assessment of $5,000. He claims that toeing no longer a resident of Toronto the assessment should toe cancelled. The Assessment Department contends that Mr. Rowell secures the income from his law practice in the city, and is therefore liable for income tax.
That is the first part of the story; the second part of the story was supplied here at Ottawa. You will observe that the newspaper item states that the hon. gentleman appealed against his income assessment of $5,OCX) in Toronto because he was no longer a resident of that city. In other words, he took the position that as a Cabinet Minister he was a resident of Ottawa. Now at the time that he launched this appeal in Toronto, both his salary as a Cabinet Minister and his sessional indemnity as a member of Parliament were exempt from taxation in Ottawa under a special agreement that then existed between the Government and the local municipal corporation. The result, Mr. Speaker, therefore would be that if he escaped taxation in Toronto on the ground that he was living in Ottawa, he would escape the payment of taxes in both cities. The publicity given to the hon. gentleman's Toronto appeal apparently killed it. In any event, the papers were taken off the files in the Toronto City Hall so that no record would remain there of this remarkable act of sacrifice and service on the part of the President of the Privy Council. And ,by the way, as I see my hon. friend the Minister of Finance in his seat, I would suggest to him that before we are put to the trouble of getting a return brought down in the House, he would make examination and find out What kind of Government income return his colleague the President of the Privy Council has made.
Now, Sir, it is a singular fact that'the individual who is most careful about his own money very often displays the utmost recklessness in spending other people's money. That is particularly true of the President of the Privy Council. His abnormal craving for notoriety, combined with the pushfulness that distinguishes the commercialized Christian, has resulted in the wasteful expenditure of enormous sums of

money since he came to Ottawa. The public records contain some items, others have not yet been made public, but the character of them all may be seen by running over a few of those that have come to light.
According to a calculation made by the Toronto Telegram in its issue of March 14, 1918, the capital value of the life interest in the seat in the Senate, acquired by the candidate who made way for the President of the Privy Council in the county of Durham, amounts to $50,000. The payment of that sum the hon. gentleman saddled the country with in order that he might get into Parliament.
A second obligation of the same kind was imposed on the country last year when the President of the Privy Council had appointed to the Senate another gentleman who had been rejected in turn by the Liberals, by the Conservatives, and by the United Farmers of his own county. Thus, according to the calculation of the Toronto Telegram, another $50,000 charge upon the country must be credited to the hon. gentleman.
Speaking in the House on March 27, 1918, the right hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir George Foster), in reply, I think, to the then leader of the Opposition, said that the Food Controller's branch was in the hands and under the direction of the President of the Privy Council. Up to that time the cost of the department averaged close to $200,000 per year, and the Farmers' Sun has described it as the most useless as well as the most costly of all the commissions that had been appointed by the Government.
Within a few weeks of assuming office the President of the Privy Council summoned a women's conference here at Ottawa. In due course the women delegates came to spend an afternoon, and were received by the hon. gentleman. There is no record of whether they put in the time crystal gazing or denouncing cigarettes, but it is on record at page 875 of Hansard for 1918 that the country paid $4,427,91 for that afternoon tea.
As an offset to this conference and just to show his impartiality and versatility, the President of the Privy Council next summoned a conference of organized labour. The delegates came at the appointed time and met the hon. gentleman, and for the afternoon of mutual improvement the country paid another $4,427.
Then, Sir, you have heard of the Department of Public Information. That -was a " Puffery Bureau," operated' for the especial benefit of the President of the Privy 16
Council, and down to the 30th of September last it had cost the country $168,000. That amount, Sir, must have been' greatly increased since September, because to the expenses of the office here must be added the expense of opening up and maintaining a similar office in New York.
Another of the hon. gentleman's fads was the Repatriation Committee. To give it an air of usefulness and respectability, there was attached to it an advisory committee of the Great War Veterans' Association. The gentlemen who' composed this advisory committee endeavoured to give the President of the Privy Council and his colleagues the point of view of the returned men through a series of recommendations on a large number of practical subjects, but when they found nothing was done they resigned on October 29 last, and in their letter of resignation they said:
To our regret and disappointment the greater part of these recommendations have been ignored or only partially considered. Had these matters been dealt with in a statesmanlike manner the present Parliamentary Committee would have been unnecessary, and the unrest among returned men,-the direct result of inaction and half conceived measures,-would have been prevented. Even after the Parliamentary Committee met and the facts had been presented to them its recommendations are apparently such that we are constrained to regard them as unsatisfactory, and we are therefore placing our resignations in your hands, once more as a protest against the inadequate measures of reestablishing the man from the battlefields of Europe.
(Sgd.) "William D. Tait,
R. B. Maxwell,
David Loughnan."
Now, Sir, up to the 29th of October last, the date of the resignation of the Great War Veterans' representatives, the Repatriation .Committee had cost the country $194,309.08, and no doubt 'that amount also has been increased since that date.
Another creation of the President of the Privy Council was the Canadian Official Record. This publication was used as a medium for boosting the Government in general and the President of the Privy Council in particular. Its contents were largely reprints of articles that had appeared in other publications, and so indefensible was the expenditure of public money on such a sheet that Government newspapers like the Toronto News and the Ottawa Journal made strong protests against it. However, in less than eleven months the President of the Privy Council made this country pay $40,134.36 for this toy of his.
Then, Sir, the President of the Privy Council went into the moving picture busi-
[Stage Direction]


ness. Although the Department of Trade and Commerce has a splendid outfit for the production of moving pictures, and has expended upon it and its Publicity Bureau a sum that must now approximate $100,000, the President of the Privy Council insisted' on attaching to his Department of Public Information another moving picture outfit. According to a return brought down in the House, the hon. gentleman after paying $5,000 in connection with moving pictures, entered into a contract for one year with the Pathescope Company of Toronto for producing other moving pictures, to be approved by him, and he is paying the company $50,000 for their year's work. It is significant of the flouting of Parliament in the matter of public expenditure that that $50,000 payment is to be made out of moneys provided by the Demobilization Appropriation Act of 1919. In that way the transaction would be covered up and thus escape criticism in Parliament. Now that it has been exposed it will, I hope, open up a field of work for those who believe that the Government should practice economy.
In regard to this moving picture business the Farmers' Sun a short time ago drew the attention to a Government expenditure of $504.80 for bacon-hog moving picture films. Now, Sir, that is a suspicious looking item.
Some hon. MEMBERS:: Explain.


Charles Murphy: At once it raises the question of whether Sir Joseph Wesley Flavelle, through his fellow Christian the President of the Privy Council, has succeeded in getting an advertisement for his bacon at the public expense. That will also bear investigation at the hands of those who believe that the Government, particularly at this time should practise economy. In view of this indefensible waste of public money the "Farmer's Sun" is moved to. say: " But still we, the common people, are adjured from Ottawa to 'produce, produce; and save, save.' Isn't it about time Ottawa itself set an example in economy?"
Now, Sir, if we pursue a little further our scrutiny of what the President of the Privy Council has been doing here at Ottawa it will be plain that, in his case at all events, appeals for economy will fall upon deaf ears. He believes in bolstering up his political fortunes at the country's expense, and there is no field in which he is not prepared to make a new venture, regardless of the cost. You will recall, Mr. Speaker, that not long ago the hon. gentleman announced that the Canadian people were suffering

from neurasthenia, and as his colleagues were insensible to this national affliction he took it upon himself to act as national physician. Accordingly he established a new Department of Health at an initial cost of .;$66,000 and put himself at the head of it as Dominion Physician-in-Chief. This was too much even for Toronto, and, as if to ridicule the minister's new pose, that city at once proceeded to develop an outbreak of smallpox. This lack of appreciation by the city in which he had tried to dodge his taxes must have astonished the minister, because even though he may have consulted all the pharmacopoeias in the Toronto Star office and the Methodist Book Room, he did not emerge from either place with any remedy .adequate to meet the new smallpox situation. In fact, while he was trying to think up .something that would make his new Health Department function, the health authorities [DOT]of the ctiy of Montreal first, and later those of the province of Quebec, issued regulations forbidding any person coming from Ontario to enter the province of Quebec unless proof of recent vaccination could be furnished. This was done, of course, purely as a measure of self-protection, but in view of the hon. gentleman's record and temperament nobody need be surprised if he should issue an order in council declaring that after careful analysis his Health Department has found that the action taken by Quebec is a dangerous symptom of French-Canadian lese-majeste, and that to prevent, its becoming contagious a new branch will be created to deal with it exclusively.
Mr. Speaker, not only has the hon. gentleman taken our national health under his wing; he has done likewise with our national morals. He is not only the national physician; he is also the national big policeman. If we will not be good, he will throw us all into jail; and for this purpose he has organized a new police force. This he did by prying loose the Dominion Police Force from his easy-going colleague the Minister of 'Justice (Hon. Mr. Doherty) and then merging it with the Royal Northwest Mounted .Police force under a new name. The combined force, according to an official announcement handed out by the minister, is to consist of a mounted section and a dismounted division. The duties of the former were defined in this official announcement in these words:
The mounted section of the force will be extended in its operations to the East, so that a series of detachments will be available in all the Provinces for the enforcement of Federal laws and also to assist the Provincial authorities at any time.

Mr. Speaker, when I read this language I was astounded. It was such a plain intimation of future encroachments upon provincial rights and suggested so many possibilities of stirring up trouble in the proy-inces of Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, that I wrote the premiers of those provinces directing their attention to the announcement the minister had given to the press and inquiring in each case if the province had asked for the assistance of this new " Rowell Police " or if any situation in which these police would be required was likely to develop. The replies from the provincial premiers were to the effect that their provinces had made no request for the new police; that they were not aware of any situation in which the services of these police would be required, and that, speaking generally, the provinces were able to look after their own affairs without any outside assistance. The reply from Sir Lomer Gouin, Premier of Quebec, states the case so admirably that I will read it:
Office of the Prime Minister,
Province of Quebec.
Quebec, February 4, 1920. Honourable Charles Murphy, M.P.,
46 Elgin Street,
Ottawa.
Dear Mr. Murphy,-I have your letter of the 31st ultimo, in which you are so good as to-call my attention to the official announcement of the merging of the North West Mounted Police and of the Dominion Police.
You ask me if I can let you know whether any request was made on behalf of this province, at any time, for the services of this new police force and, if not, whether any condition of things exists, or is likely to exist, that will make it necessary for us to call in its assistance.
In answer, I have to state that we made no request in connection with police assistance to the Federal Government and that we do not anticipate that any condition will arise necessitating our having recourse to the Federal Police.
I must add that I felt an astonishment equal to your own when I read the announcement you refer to as I have always considered that police matters, in the province, are within the exclusive attributes of the provincial governments as being a part of the administration of justice, of municipal and local matters in the province.
Mr. ROBERT H. BUTTS (Cape Breton South and Richmond): Will my hon. friend read the reply made by Hon. George Murray, Premier of Nova Scotia?


Charles Murphy: I would like to oblige
my hon. friend but I prefer to read the reply which I am now reading to the House.
I have grave douhts as to there being any jurisdiction at all in the Federal authorities in
this connection. Some time ago Lord Rosebery stated something which I believe has its application here. The Imperial Government had advertised the sale of a part of his property which it had used during the war, without in any way consulting Lord Rosebery in the matter. The latter, on seeing the advertisement, gave out to the press that the Government and its Commissions had so frequently and to such an extent encroached upon the rights of private individuals during the war that it probably had come to think that these rights existed no longer. I am inclined to balieve that the numerous encroachments upon Provincial rights and powers of which the Federal Government and its Comrriissions have been guilty during the last four or five years have also given them the idea that Provincial rights exist no more.
I can assure you that we feel capable of coping unaided with every thing that occurs in this Province in the way of administration of justice and the protection of the life and property of its inhabitants, and that we are perfectly secure in the opinion that nothing will occur that will be beyond our powers.
Believe me.
Yours faithfully,'
Lomer Gouin.
Of course, there is another purpose for which the new police force could be used. While the hon. gentleman remains at the head of the force, it can be used for raids on private houses, colleges, and libraries, that may contain books or papers objectionable to the hon. gentleman or his friends. In point of fact, that very thing has been done in several parts of the Dominion in a way as high-handed and unjustifiable as if the Kaiser himself was directing the raids. Yin this point, the Grain Growers' Guido made a few timely observations. In a recent issue, that paper said:
The people of Canada will not be true to their instincts, their traditions, and their just rights, as a free, self-governing people, if they do not demand, and insist upon getting, an explanation from Ottawa, in regard to the arbitrary proceedings that have taken place recently, months after the cessation of hostilities, in the invasion of private houses, colleges and libraries, under the provisions of an order-in-council framed explicitly for war-time conditions, the seizure of books and papers, and the sentencing of individuals to terms of imprisonment for having in their possession literature under the war-time ban of the censorship.
In Alberta, and in 'Ontario, these searches, arrests, confiscations, and punishments have been carried out in a manner which would- have been more in keeping with the old methods of the old autocratic regime in Russia than with the institutions of government in this free country.
But, Sir, the invasion of private rights has not been restricted to the cases referred to by the Grain Growers' Guide. Of late, a new line of activity has been opened up for the new police force which apparently has instructions to make war on women

whose political opinions do not happen to please the President of the Council and his friends. The latest instance of this kind that came to my notice happened in Toronto, an dthe particulars of the incident are set out in the following letter:



DAUGHTERS OF CANADA, INCORPORATED 1919, DOMINION CHARTER.

[Stage Direction]
Toronto, Feb. 25, 1920. Hon! Chas. Murphy, M.P.,
Ottawa.
Dear Sir:-I am sure that you will be interested to know that we have got as far as the Dominion Mounted Police.
Our first intimation of this was that the T.M.C.A. refused us a room. The President, the Secretary, and I, called to see the man in charge, and to ask why-since many organizations have meetings there-the Daughters of Canada were excluded.
He told us that a man had called from the .Mounted Police, armed with some newspaper clippings ( !) and asked for the address of our officers, as he was going to take action against us for disloyalty. Our Corresponding Secretary Mrs. Stevens, then went to the headquarters of these Police, and found an Englishman, Inspector Bates, in charge. She demanded his authority for interfering with our organization, and asked to see the newspaper clippings. He told her that they had been passed on. She could get no further information. I can't help wondering if they were " passed on " to the minister whose special brand of courage is attacking women from afar off.
Yours truly,
(Signed) Christine Ross barker,
Treasurer D. of C.
Making war on women! Imagine what a degradation that must be for the gallant members of a force with the magnificent record and the world-wide reputation of the Royal North West Mounted Police. As the Ottawa Citizen, in its issue of February 6, said:
Changing the name of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, or the Dominion Mounted Police, does not necessarily mean that law and order is being promoted. Royal Northwest Mounted Police is a name known and respected in every part of the world. When a man joins the Royal Northwest Mounted Police, he becomes conscious of having to live up to the traditions and reputation of the force, created by half a cenury of service on the side of law and order. Mr. Rowell's new police begins without any such name, and with nothing very inspiring at its political head. When the present government, itself governed by fear, gives place to government with confidence in the good sense of the Canadian people, the Royal Northwest Mounted Police should have their honored name restored to them.
Not only should they 'have their honoured name restored to them, but they should be returned to the work which they have done so long and so well. To use the phraseology of the Ottawa Citizen, "the good sense of the

Canadian people" will commend any action of this Parliament that will restore the Royal North West Mounted Police force to the enviable position it occupied in our national life before the President of the Privy Council succeeded in pulling it down from its high estate.
The hon. gentleman poses as an exemplar in so many lines, and by reason of that so often assumes the right to set standards for other people, that a few minutes may be profitably, employed in examining the kind of an example he sets the public in the matter of loyalty to his own colleagues. Last year, during the debate on the Budget, we had the spectacle of the hon. gentleman conveying to the House and to the country the intimation that his former colleague, the ex-Minister of Agricutlure (Mr. Crerar), had taken in Council a position on the tariff inconsistent with that which he afterwards took in this House. Up to the time the President of the Privy Council made his appearance in Dominion politics, the proceedings of Council were regarded as secret, and the members of Council were regarded as being bound by their oath of office not to reveal them. Only certain decisions of Council were made public, and those only in an official and a well-understood way; but the hon. gentleman, with that fine sense of honour that distinguishes him from common folk introduced a startling innovation when, in replying to the speech on the Budget of his former polleague the ex-Minister of Agriculture, lie gave the House and the country plainly to understand that the attitude which the ex-Minister of Agriculture had taken in Council, where all that is said and done is of a confidential end secret character, was at variance with the attitude which the ex-Minister of Agriculture took later in this House. This is what the President of the Council said. I quote from Hansard of June 12, 1919, page 3407:
Every man must exercise his own judgment on an important issue like this and I have the greatest respect for the judgment and sincerity of my hon. friend, the member for Marquette (Mr. Crerar), but I say to the House and to the country that if I was prepared, as all my colleagues were, to support the Finance Minister in- coming down to this House during this war year without any revision of the tariff, I do not believe that I am absolved from, supporting him when he has revised the tariff in a measure according to the lines that I desire.
Hon. members will note the oblique and tortuous way in which the President of the Council, in the words which I have just qiioted, put his former colleague the ex-

Minister of Agriculture, who was known to favour tariff revision, in the position of having first agreed in Council that there should not be any revision of the tariff in 1919, and then of having' later opposed such a revision as he desired when it was brought down in the House. The President of the Privy Council did this knowing that the only way in which the ex-Minister of Agriculture could refute him would be by disclosing what that hon. gentleman had said and done in Council, and the President of the Privy Council knew perfectly well that as an honourable man the ex-Minister of Agriculture would make no such disclosure. So, relying on the sense of honour of his ex-colleague, the President of the Privy Council in violation of his oath of office did not hesitate to place his former colleague in a false position before the House and the country.
The precise character of the offence committed by the President of the Privy Council will be made more clear if I read that portion of the oath bearing on this matter, which he took as a Privy Councillor. The oath was in these terms:
You Newton Wesley Rowell do solemnly promise and swear that you will serve His Majesty truly and faithfully in the place of His Council in this His Majesty's Dominion of Canada, ydu will keep close and secret all such matters as shall be treated, debated and resolved on in Privy Council, without publishing or disclosing the same or any part thereof, by Word, Writing, or otherwise to any Person out of the same Council, but to such only as be of the Council.	.
That is the beginning of the oath which is taken by all Privy Councillors, and which the President of the Privy Council took when he tvas sworn in as a member of that Council, and it was in violation of that part of the oath which I have read that he made the statement in the House [DOT] to which I drew attention a few moments ago. I have only to observe further, Sir, that even if the intimation given to the House by the President of the Privy Council about his colleague's attitude in Council were true, that would not justify this breach of the spirit and the letter of his oath of office.
Now let me recall the attitude this same hon. gentleman has displayed in the House and iu the country towards his colleagues the Minister of Justice (Mr. Doherty) and the late Minister of Customs, now the Secretary of State (Mr. Sifton). These two hon. gentlemen represented Canada at the Peace Conference. The President of the Privy Council was not there, although he and his kept press made frantic efforts to induce
the right hon. the Prime Minister to send him there. When the Peace Treaty was signed, it was the Minister of Justice (Mr. Doherty) /and the then Minister of Customs (Mr. Sifton) who signed it on behalf of Canada, but when anything is to be said about the Peace Conference or the Peace. Treaty or the League of Nations the President of the Privy Council, who was not at the Conference, and who did not sign the-treaty,. coolly elbows his two colleagues out of the way and tells the House and the-country what was done at the Conference, what the Peace Treaty means, and particularly what the League of Nations means. There, Sir, you have another example of the hon. gentleman's modesty and of his fine regard for the feelings ol his colleagues -of his always doing that which will promote harmony in the Cabinet and in the Government ranks.
In'case some one might be tempted to say that an Opposition member should not complain if the President of the Privy Council is acting in the way I have described, let me point out that I am not complaining; far from it, I am simply drawing attention to what is going on.
We had* another example of the hon. gentleman's loyalty to his colleagues and his fine regard for their feelings when the Grand Trunk Bill was under discussion last session. The Minister of Railways (Mr. J. D. Reid) and the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Meighen) had charge of .that measure, but on a number of occasions the President of the Privy Council shoved them aside and took the conduct of the Bill out of their hands. That was particularly the case on a memorable evening when, after the hon. member for Cape Breton North (Mr. McKenzie) had moved an amendment to the second reading of the Bill, the President of the Privy Council struggled with his colleague the Minister of Railways for possession of the floor. The incident is embalmed in Hansard of October 21, in these few lines:
Mr. J. D. REID:: Mr. Speaker-
Mr. ROWELL; Mr. Speaker-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Who has thq floor?
Some hon. MEMBERS; Order.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Order.
To our surprise the Minister of Railways gave way and allowed this great railway authority to make the speech which under all the rules of the House the Minister of Railways should have made on that occasion.
Having disposed of the Minister of Railways and the Minister of the Interior, the
24G

President of the Privy Council next displayed his loyalty to his colleague the Minister of Labour by going down to Washington and usurping his place there at the International Labour Conference. Incidentally, he found time during the Conference to make a trip from Washington to Detroit, at the public expense, 5 p.m. I have no doubt, for the purpose of addressing a Y.M.C.A. conference in the latter city. He is reported by the Toronto Globe to have said when speaking at Detroit :
No nation can go out to the other nations cf the world as a Christian leader until it establishes social justice within its own boundaries. We have not achieved social justice. We have not succeeded in amplifying the ideal of human brotherhood sufficiently to entitle us to be spiritual leaders.	*
He must have had an access of modesty that day. He continued:
I think quite probably there will be some funerals in both your country and mine before we accomplish that.
As you will observe, Sir, the hon. gentleman's remarks at Detroit were somewhat doleful, and they have a sound like that which a person makes when he-is preparing a soft spot for himself to fall on. In point of fact, that is just what the hon. gentleman was doing. He spoke at Detroit shortly after the Ontario elections, and as the county of Durham, which he represents. in this House, by way of a senatorship in another, had just elected a Liberal and a Farmer as its provincial representatives, he felt it was high time to begin practising his political swan song, and so he began at Detroit with this reference to funerals. He added another verse at Port Hope, and of that I shall speak a little later.
Meanwhile I want to deal briefly with a few of the hon. gentleman's other activities which have combined to create confusion in the public mind. The misleading propaganda in which the President of the Privy Council habitually indulges has been given free rein in connection with his utterances about the League of Nations and the eight-hour day. Although it has taken the United States Senate many months to discuss the Covenant of the League of Nations, and the obligations that the United States will as-sulne if the Treaty is adopted without reservations, the Parliament of Canada, after a superficial and brief discussion was induced, chiefly by the hon. gentleman to swallow the Treaty and Covenant and to reject the eminently proper amendment proposed from this- side of the House by the hon. member for Shelburne and

Queen's (Mr. Fielding). Since that time the President of the Privy Council has adopted a truculent attitude towards the United States, and in addresses before various clubs has laboured to create the impression that principally through his efforts Canada has assumed the moral leadership of this continent, that the United States Senate in not swallowing the Treaty and the League of Nations with its eyes shut has forfeited public respect, and is derelict in its duty towards other entente nations, and that the chief, if not the only objection of the United States Senate to the Treaty was the number of votes given to Great Britain and the Overseas Dominions.	I
Just to illustrate the difference between such a dabbler in world politics as the hon. gentleman and a man of trained experience and sound judgment in international affairs,
I am going to refer you to a notable article in the North American Review for January last written by the Hon. J. M. Beck who was deputy attorney general of the United States in the Qai'fiokl Administration. Mr. Beck has delivered many important addresses in Canada and he was well known here as a staunch friend of the Allies long before his country entered the war. Mr. Beck's article begins with a reference to the traditional policy of the United States towards world politics and after recalling an unsuccessful effort that was made one hundred years ago to have the United States join a European League of Nations, Mr. Beck points out that under the American constitution no official, however great or illustrious he may be, could commit the United States to any treaty obligation except upon the concurrence of two-thirds of the Senate. Mr. Beck then recalls the storm of protest throughout the United States with which President Wilson's announce: ment that he was going to Paris was received; the refusal of the American people [DOT] in the State elections of 1918 by a majority exceeding 1,000,000 votes to grant the President an unlimited moral authority to commit them to any peace programme; the formal notice given by more than one-third of the Senate on the return of the Piesident with the first draft of the Covenant of the League that it would not be accepted by the American people, and the fatal blunders that were made by the European nations in not heeding these notices and warnings. Notwithstanding these blunders and the Senate rejection of the Peace Treaty on account of the League of Nations, Mr. Beck declares that

" the Anglp-Freneh-American entente is not dead " and that " the best hope of the world for the preservation of a just peacp lies not so much in the League of Nations as in the spirit of mutual co-operation between the members of the great alliance which called it into being." In final explanation of the attitude of the United States Mr. Beck says:
It is now obvious that the United States while willing to he the helpful friend of her sister democracies was not disposed to be a partner of a large number of nations, some democratic and some autocratic and with some of whom she has scant sympathy.
Throughout the article there is but one allusion to the votes allowed Great Britain and the overseas Dominions and that is made merely for the purpose of explaining that the multiplied vote of the British Empire was desired by the Overseas Dominions rather than by England. Mr. Beck makes it clear that the action of the Senate was in no way influenced by these votes or by other alleged considerations but that it was based upon constitutional principles and upon the broadest grounds of patriotism because the covenant would permanently affect the destinies of the American people. He adds that a majority of the American people take a just pride in the fact that the Senate " refused to permit its high prerogative to be defeated by that which was virtually a policy of coercion." For us Canadians that article in the North American Review is full of significance. It shows how careful our neighbours to the south are about entering into foreign engagements of any kind and how rigidly opposed they are to the surrender of any constitutional privilege they rfow enjoy. In a word, iSir, the article is instinct with the spirit of a people who are free and who are determined to remain free without giving offence to any other people enjoying the same freedom.
If, in conjunction with that article, there be borne in mind first, the testimony of William C. Bullitt before the foreign relations committee of the United States Senate to the effect that Secretary Lansing had said in Paris that if the United States knew what it was being let in for it would never ratify the Treaty; secondly, the recent statement of Mr. Asquith during the Paisley election that the peace arranged at Versailles was a bad peace, and, thirdly, the still more recent statement of Earl Curzon that the Peace Treaty will have to be rewritten, that it was never intended to be permanent-if, I repeat, these
things be borne in mind, is it not about time for the Canadian people to call a halt to the wild capering of the President of the Privy Council through the mazes of the Treaty and of the League of Nations and that they read for themselves what men who understand both the Treaty and the League of Nations are saying about them. In any event, Sir, should not Canada be as little disposed as the United States, in the words of Mr. Beck, " to be a partner of a large number of nations, some democratic, x some autocratic and with some of whom she has scant sympathy?" The future of this country, like that of the United States is on this continent. That being so, I ask why should Canada be less careful than the United States in committing herself to foreign engagements of which she knows nothing? Why should this Parliament as the guardian of Canadian interests allow herself to be stampeded in the dark in reference to such vital matters as the Treaty and the League of Nations when eminent jurists on both sides of the Atlantic make it plain that neither is what the President of the Privy Council says it is.
Let me make a few observations in reference to the hon. gentleman's performances in connection with the eight-hour day. Having elbowed his colleague, the Minister of Labour out of the way and assumed the role of labour leader of the Dominion, the President of the Council then put himself forward as the leading authority on the eight-hour day and the forty-eight-hour week in this country. More than anything else, his speeches created the impression in the public mind that the Peace Treaty made or would make the eight-hour day obligatory in the countries which signed it. The Treaty does nothing of the kind. The Treaty only sets forth as a principle that the eight-hour day should be a " standard to be aimed at," the inference being that it should be adopted by a country when the economic conditions of that country justified such action. Beyond that the language of the Treaty does not go. The pretensions and performances of the President of the Council in reference to the eight-hour day received some attention at the hands of a newspaper which is a supporter of Union Government. In its issue of December 19 last the Montreal Gazette said editorally .
Mr. ROWELL'S MISSION.
Having committed the Canadian Government to the principle, if not the practice, of the eight-hour day, at the Washington Conference, Hon. Mr. Rowell is now engaged in discussing the matter with the Canadian pull-

lie. A reversal of this procedure would have been more in harmony with the theory of responsible government. Mr. Rowell's ministerial record does not reveal him as a consistent apostle of that theory, and it is due as much to his instrumentality as to that of any other member of the Administration, that responsible government has so largely given place to Cabinet rule in this country. Mr. Rowell spoke for the Canadian Government at the Labour Conference in Washington. He did not speak there for the Canadian people nor for Canadian labour. He was quoted as stating that the matter was one to be determined by the Government, and having enunciated that progressive principle, he announced his support of the eight-hour day convention.
A little later the same article reads thus:
The reduction of the aggregate hours of labour means a reduction in the amount of work done. Experience has by actual demonstration shown that to be the case. Yet Mr. Rowell talks in the same breath of the desirability of the forty-eight hour week, and the necessity of increased production. It would be difficult to imagine two more inconsistent propositions, and yet Mr. Rowell presents them as complementary.
Further on the article says:
Some further effort might probably be made toward a declaration in definite terms as to the exact nature and scope of the conditions attached to the acceptance of the eight-hour day. What limitations were made, and how far do they go? Is it proposed to apply the so-called principle of the eight-hour day to the basic industry of Canada, that of agriculture? Are the fisheries to be operated on an eight-hour day basis, and is the forty-eight hour week to prevail in the great lumber industry? These are all seasonal occupations, carried on under conditions which do not lend themselves to the operation of an eight-hour day, or, if at all, only at enormous additional cost, which must-be borne by the consumer. As against this increase in the cost of production there is, of course, the alternative of a reduction in the production itself, again with its burden of higher prices to be paid by the consumer.
Take agriculture as an example. It is hardly necessary to state that a reduction in the agricultural yield means higher prices for the amount actually produced. The eight-hour day in agriculture would inevitably reduce production, unless more labour is employed, and more labour, if it can be secured at all on the farm, means increased cost of production, which the consumer must pay. The question as to the practicability of applying the eight-hour day to farm work was answered only a few days ago in Toronto by J. C. Dixon, of Warfield, presiding as master of the Dominion Grange. It would mean, he said, that the people would have to pay 30 cents a quart for milk, $2 a peck for potatoes, $5 a bushel for wheat, and $1 a pound for butter, and would "come nearer to jarring the Canadian people back to a level of common sense than anything else that could possibly happen at present." If the eight-hour day means this in agriculture, how is it to result differently in other industries? Does it not mean reduced production, or the maintenance of production at greater cost, and increased prices to the public either way?
Slo much, Sir, for the vapourings of the President of the Privy Council and the mis-flfFt. Murphy. 1
apprehension which he has created about the terms of the Treaty relating to the eight-hour day. What has happened in this regard furnishes another proof of the mistake Parliament made by allowing itself to be hurried into ratification of the Treaty before examining and discussing its contents in detail.
Mr. Speaker, apart from anything the Treaty may contain, if you want sane leadership in Canada on the question of an eight-hour day you can get it from the National Trade Unions in the Province of Quebec. There was -a labour convention held in Three Rivers in September last, which was attended by delegates representing sixty-three National organizations and 30,000 workmen from all parts of the province. The convention adopted a number of resolutions of the most practical character. Here is the resolution that was adopted with reference to hours of work:
The Convention expresses the opinion that any provision enforcing a fixed number of hours for the legal working day is arbitrary, unwise and inopportune, but it maintains that the length of working, days should be such as to give the workman a reasonable time to recuperate, to perform his duties as husband, father, citizen, and Catholic, and to do justice to the reasonable obligations of commerce, industry and finance.
A report of the convention contains this summary of the discussion about the eight-hour day:
"We see no advantage," declared some of the speakers, "in legalizing a uniform eight-hour day for trades requiring little effort and carried on under favourable sanitary conditions. On the other hand, we find the same eight-hour day excessive for other very exhausting trades practised under most distressing conditions. Instead of claiming an arbitrary regulation which ignores obvious differences, we lay down the principles governing the whole question and let the various trades conform to those principles according to their respective needs."
"Less working hours and a higher salary is all very well," remarked a speaker, "but if every one does less and earns more, the cost of living will go rising and where will it stop? Then what about the poor devil who belongs to no union and can get no increase? Will his condition improve?"
Thus you see, Mr. Speaker, that the labour unions of the province of Quebec keep in mind not only the welfare of their own members, but also the welfare of those workers who are^not represented in unions. While doing th'is for the workers, they acknowledge their duty to do justice to the reasonable obligations of commerce, industry, and finance.
Mr. Speaker, is it any wonder that, industrially, Quebec has become the admiration and the envy of this continent, and the one

province in Canada where foreign capital seeks investment? Is it any wonder that a man who knows the conditions in Quebec as Sir Andrew MacPhail does should speak of that province in these terms:
" Quebecers were referred to as Canadians and there was nothing more true. It was very significant that the spirit of Quebec governed Canada, and without that spirit Canada could not be governed.
" The people had inherited the qualities of their forefathers, and these qualities, which had kept France to the fore in Europe had also kept Quebec in the lead in Canada.
**. It was the spirit of Quebec that made of the province a paradise of common sense, of political wisdom and of personal liberty. If that spirit could be maintained, Quebec would be the last refuge of civilization on the continent."
Mr. Speaker, no more deserved tribute wras ever uttered than that paid by Sir Andrew MacPhail to the spirit of Quebec. Splendid at all times, that spirit has been particularly splendid during the past two years and a half. Reviled, insulted, and outraged on behalf of Union Government. Quebec went quietly and steadily upon her way. In less than eighteen months after winning a criminally conducted election. Union Government was on its knees to Quebec praying that some of its public men would join the Government and save it from destruction. What a spectacle, Mr. Speaker, was presented last summer when the head of the Union Government, the right hon. the Prime Minister himself, and his new Minister of Finance, went sailing up and down the St. Lawrence river calling at every other wharf and beseeching one French Canadian after another to enter the Government and save the country. But the men of Quebec were true to the spirit of Quebec; and as their province had gained in national fibre and in national respect by resolutely refusing to have anything to do with Union Government, they could not be coaxed, bribed, or cajoled into an alliance of any kind with the vilifiers of their province, their race, and their creed. , And so, Sir, they remain aloof and apart from this Union Government conserving their strength for the day upon which the spirit of their province will be triumphantly justified by the defeat of the cowering politicians who let loose the floodgates of passion and prejudice, and who to-day cry aloud to be saved from the ghosts of their own raising.
Mr. Speaker, we hear from time to time a great deal of talk about the need of unity in this country; we have heard during this debate declarations of that kind
from the hon. member for London (Mr. Gronyn), from the hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Whidden), and from other hon. gentlemen. As I listened to these hon. members I could not help reflecting that they were somewhat late with their appeals, and that there would have been more point in those appeals if they had been made, for instance, two years ago last December, while, the general election was in progress. As the result of that election the present Government attained office. This Government is called a Union Government, but Sir, it has destroyed every vestige of unity in this country. How could it be otherwise when the head of the Government is a gentleman who, a little over two years ago, used language in this House calculated to incite returned soldiers to turn their arms against those who dared oppose him and his policy? So that there may be no doubt of what the right hon. gentleman said I will quote his exact words. They will be found in Hansard for 1917 at page 2195. He then stated:	.
If what are left of 400,000 such men come back to Canada with fierce resentment, and even rage in their hearts, conscious that they have been deserted and betrayed, how shall we meet them when they ask the reason? I am not so much concerned for the day when this Bill becomes law, as for the day when these men return, if it is rejected.
That is the language used by the Prime Minister, and its meaning admits of no doubt. Naturally, with such a man at the head of this Government national unity is an impossibility. But, Sir, it is doubly impossible when the aims and objects of a body from which the right hon. gentleman derives his chief support are made known. That body is the Orange Order of Canada; and I propose to disclose to the House and to the country the kind of contribution to national unity that this chief prop of Union Government has been making.
Mr. Speaker, if I were to quote statements about the Orange Order made by persons not members of the Order it' might be objected that such statements were prejudiced or were incorrect or unreliable, because made by persons without actual personal knowledge of the aims and objects of the Orange Order. In order that no such objection may be urged, I propose letting the Orangemen speak for themselves, and I am going to read from a circular which carries the names of the leaders of Orangeism in the province of Ontario. The circular is self-explanatory, and while I will not read the whole of it on account of its length, I will be pleased when I am through with it

to hand it over to any person who may be desirous of seeing all that it contains. It has to be kept in mind, Mr. Speaker, that I am about to quote from this circular for the purpose of making it clear that while the sentiments that find expression in its pages are held by any considerable number of our people, and are sanctioned by any government in this country, national unity is a hollow phrase and a mockery of existing political conditions.
The circular, which might well be termed "A Canadian Hymn of Hate" begins in this fashion:
(Strictly Confidential.)
To be referred to or read only within the tiled doors of lodge, chapter or preceptory, and must on no account pass out of your possession.
Report of the Joint Legislation Committee of the Orange Order.
70 Dewson street, Toronto, Ont., March 1, 1918.
Dear Sir and Brother,-As soon as you receive this copy of the report of the Joint Legislation Committee, will you very kindly return a note acknowledging the receipt. This is very important, as w'e are anxious to know that the document comes into the right hands. A stamped addressed envelope is enclosed for this reply.
A further report will be presented to the coming session of the Most Worshipful Grand Lodge of British America at its meeting, in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, next July.
Our financial year ends on March 31, and the report will be issued shortly thereafter.
I am, faithfully and fraternally yours,
Signed W. BANKS,
Secretary-Treasurer.
R. W. Sir and Brethren-Your Joint Committee on Legislation beg leave to report as follows:
The black clouds of war still overshadow God's beautiful world, and the bloodthirsty and impious War Lord of Germany continues, with the aid of his willing and equally guilty satellites, to pollute the earth, to break every promise, to boast in his sinfulness that he is God's representative on earth, whereas we know he is the Devil's most faithful ally.
Then they come down to matters more prosaic:
At our last meeting we reported that the Premier, in answer to our urgent request for compulsory military service on the draft principle, had said if an emergency arose he would not hesitate to follow such a course.
We continued our effort for this military service law, and shortly before the Military Service Act was introduced into the Commons a deputation from our committee which went to Ottawa, were assured that a measure of compulsory military service would be introduced, and this has, of course, now become law. ******
We have renewed our request for the exclusion from Canada of all evil-disposed and disloyal people wrho may desire to enter our Dominion

from the British Isles or other lands, under whatever name or disguise they may assume.
We have asked for the exclusion of alien enemy immigrants, for the refusal of land grants to all alien enemies, and we are pleased to report that by instructions to the customs officers, immigration officers and land agents, our requests along these lines are being carried out.
Naturalization of people from alien enemy countries is at a standstill, and the War Elections Act was passed, as we urged it should, by which alien enemies in Canada were almost entirely disfranchised.
Acting in hearty co-operation, as we always do, our own Order, through its M.W. Grand Master, Dr. Ellis, and the Royal Black Knights through their Grand Master, Bro. A.A. Gray, issued an appeal to both memberships to use every legitimate means to secure the support of the members of Parliament in every constituency for the Military Service Act and the Wartime Elections Act. We must see to it that the safe-guards of this Election Act are not thrown away when the war is over.
I commend that to your notice, Mr. Speaker, in view of the new franchise Act we are promised.
We are urging the Government to see to it that people who, by reason of peace treaties at the close of the war may be entitled to come here from alien countries, should not be enfranchised at all, and that under no circumstances shall their descendants, or the descendants of people of alien enemy countries now naturalized here be enfranchised until they can read and write in the English language and until they sign a document agreeing to obey our laws, learn the English language, have it efficiently taught in their schools, and to forfeit all their property and civil rights and be liable to deportation on conviction of failure in these matters.
/ ******
We congratulate the Ontario Government-
Of course, this was drafted, Mr. Speaker, long before the recent Ontario election.

on its new land regulations, which provide against any alien enemy or miljtary shirker securing lands in New Ontario, and for the first time in the history of this Dominion it is made part of the contract for securing the land that the would-be settler agrees to forfeit his claim if he disobeys the military and other laws of the Dominion, and if he refuses or neglects to have his children educated thoroughly in English, or disobeys the school laws, or other laws of the province.
With Bro. the Hon. G. H. Ferguson, as Minister of Crown Lands-
There no longer, Mr. Speaker.
-with R. W. Bro. Dane as Commissioner for these new lands, and W. Bro. W. D. McPherson Chairman of the Soldiers' Aid Commission, which is helping to settle soldiers in the North, we hope soon to have the disloyal French Canadian element on these new lands in their proper place.
******
We regret that the Ontario bilingual school fight is still unsettled. We repeat what we said last year on this subject:-

Then the report goes on to deal with the usual arguments about bilingualism in Ontario.
Then it proceeds:
We have, at the request of our Prince Edward Island brethren, secured the legal opinion of two eminent lawyers on the question of the right to use French in the schools of that province. We believe the opinion will greatly help our Island brethren in their fight against French aggression.
It has become quite apparent that the school situation in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Alberta, must be thoroughly investigated, and our brethren in each of these provinces, assisted by legal advice, organization and investigation, so that effective steps may be taken to - put an end to Rome's tactics in using French in schools wherever she can.
. Mr. GEORGE BOYCE (Carleton): I may inform the hon. gentleman that the members of that band belong to the most loyal race in the Dominion of Canada. That cannot be said for his followers.


Charles Murphy: I did not quite catch
what the hon. gentleman said, but in view-


Mr. BOYCE:: Do you want to hear it
again?


Charles Murphy: In view of the contents of the circular and of the fact that the hon. gentleman's name is attached to it I can understand his anxiety at the present moment.	*


George Boyce: Mr. Speaker, I have to say that these are the most loyal men in all Canada; they stood boldly for their country when Canada stood in need of loyal men.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: but we do believe that in view "of present
conditions no Roman Catholic should be in charge of important public papers or in a position where he can favour people of his own race or creed.
We must not, however, stop at this. We must now begin a systematic campaign for the inspection of every convent, nunnery, monastery, anti other secret places, places men and women are immured. We must demand legislation for the registration of every inmate, for the registration of all births and deaths, for the notification of every removal from one institution to another, for the absolute prohibition of the removal to places outside of this province of any inmate of these institutions, and for the holding of an inquest in case of every death in these places, as is necessary in the case of the death of any other prisoner.

Now is the time to act, and to act persistently and continuously, until we win.
In spring and early summer there . were rumours that in some Romish centres arms were coming in and drilling taking place among Romanists. We immediately started searching investigations, and the Provincial Government employed secret service men also to investigate. The Dominion Government, at our request, also investigated.
And then, iMr. Speaker, listen to this.
No definite case was found, but there is an almost absolute certainty that these investigations put an end to any action Rome had planned for causing trouble here. The Dominion Government insists now on knowing the actual contents of packages, cases and other articles coming here from the States, as Britain does on all shipments from there.
Once again we desire to impress upon all officers and members the wisdom of doing everything possible to assist our returned soldiers. Our secretary has had scores of cases, in which our Orange members at the front have asked that their children, their wives, and their parents, be looked after. Some cases were very sad. In every case prompt attention was paid and many letters of grateful thanks have been received. Our secretary is a member of the Ontario Soldiers' Aid Commission, and is thus better able to attend to those cases. He has now the names and addresses of over 15,000 returned Ontario soldiers,

Possible voters, you see, Mr. Speaker. (Reading):

and in the course of the next few months
he intends supplying every County Master with the names and addresses of these men in his county, so that those eligible can be induced to join the lodges in their respective localities. The entrance fees in such cases might be entirely abolished or reduced to a minimum.
The advisability of getting these men to join our ranks has been made perfectly obvious by the results of the general elections. It seems to us that parties are so changing that this Order, if our leaders are far-seeing and wise, will become the governing force in Dominion affairs, gathering to its side all loyal Englishspeaking and Protestant people. Very, very few Roman Catholics will aid us,

Well, they at least give us credit foi having a little sense. (Reading):

key to its policy to-day as it ever was in the days that are past. Hence, Sir, I unhesitatingly affirm in this House that in the return of the Liberal party to power lies the hope for national unity in this Dominion of Canada.
Much of the discussion, Sir, to which you have listened in this debate has centered on the amendment moved by the honi. leader of the Opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King). That amendment calls for a dissolution and an election. Speakers on the Government side of the House have challenged the arguments advanced from this side in support of the amendment.. I now propose to offer them an argument used by a member of the Government which, in my judgment, affords the strongest possible - justification for the amendment of the hon.-leader of the Opposition.
Not long ago, the President of the Privy Council made a pilgrimage to the town of Port Hope. He spoke there, and he proved the case of the people against Union Government more convincingly than even an opponent of the Government could have done. In effect, the hon. gentleman told the people of Port Hope that he knew that Union Government was singularly unpopular everywhere, and then he proceeded to state the reasons for this unpopularity. Why, Mr. Speaker, he should have sought any reason beyond his own presence in the Government is something the ordinary man cannot understand. However, he did give another reason-the most extraordinary one a Canadian audience ever listened to. The Government's unpopularity, he said, was due to its shining virtues as reflected by its administration of public affairs.
Now, Sir, here is a distinct admission by the most moral member of the Government, that it no longer possesses the confidence of the country, and that it. is merely holding on to office in the forlorn hope that something may turn up. In our political history never before has a minister of the Crown said publicly and so distinctly, that he knew that he and his colleagues were hanging on to office in defiance of the will of the people they are misgoverning. How his colleagues must have blessed him for that speech ! It gave their whole case away. It placed them in the position of men who are too good for this world, and not yet ready for the next, and, as you know, Mr. Speaker, such ethereal, creatures as that are liable to be roughly handled by the sinners who constitute the great majority at election times. No wonder, then, that the Toronto Globe and other papers like it are telling the Government to get

out -to dissolve and hold an election. It is because this feeling is so widespread that I regard the amendment placed in your hands as most timely, and it is my intention to support it with my vote.
At six o'clock, the House took recess.
After Recess.
The House resumed at eight o'clock.
Hon. NEWTON W. ROWELL (President of the Privy Council):	Mr. Speaker, this
House was called for the despatch of public business, not to give an opportunity to an hon. member to gratify his personal spite as against another member of this House. Hon. gentlemen have left their homes, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and have come here to transact the nation's business in the hour of the nation's need; yet this House spent the entire afternoon in listening to an address from an exPrivy Councillor, the whole subject of which was simply to gratify an apparently unsatisfied personal animosity against a member on this side of the House to whom he attributes some responsibility for the disappointment of his political ambitions in the year 1917. I had hoped, Mr. Speaker, if it were my privilege to take part in this debate, to discuss some of the important public questions now before the people of this country and demanding the consideration of the House. I deeply regret, as I am sure you all regret, that by reason of the character of the address delivered by the hon. member for Russell (Mr. Murphy) it is necessary for me to take up some of your time at least in dealing with the matters which he has mentioned. I may, however, say that I think hon. members are to be congratulated on the fact that there is only one member of the House, who would make such an exhibition of himself as did the hon. gentleman.
I rise to reply to the hon. member not because the statements he made this afternoon demand an answer at my hands, nor to satisfy the members on the other side of the House nor on the Government side. The unsympathetic manner in which the remarks of my hon. friend were received by his own colleagues on his own side is the best evidence to the House and the country that the men who know him best trust him least. Nor is it necessary that I should reply to the remarks of the hon. member to the people who know me in this province or throughout the Dominion of Canada. My record in the public life of

this country is a sufficient answer to what the hon. member has said. Nor is it necessary that I should rise to reply to the people of this country who know the member for Russell. His record and his conduct are a sufficient answer to his own accusations. I rise because there are some people, no doubt, in this province and in this Dominion who may not know either of us, who may not know the record of the hon. member or of myself as well as the member's of this House do, and by whom, therefore, my silence might be misconstrued if I did not pay some attention to the hon. member.
Every man recognizes that the good opinion of decent, honourable and public-spirited citizens is one of the most valuable possessions that any man can have-a priceless possession. Every man recognizes and values the good opinion of his fellow-citizens. But there are some men-and the members of the House will recognize them -whose hostility and opposition constitute the greatest compliment that can be paid to a man. I congratulate myself on having earned the hostility of the hon. member for Russell.
The hon. gentleman started out by telling us that he delivered a speech in this House in 1918. He did. He made an even worse exhibition of himself in 1918 than he did to-day. He made it at a time when this country was in the midst of a war; he made it at a time when this country required to combine all its energies and resources to back up the men overseas and to help to win the war. He made an inflammatory declaration and appeal in this House, not for the purpose of backing up our men overseas, not for the purpose of uniting the people of Canada in support of the war but for the purpose of dividing the people of Canada. If the hon. member had expended one tithe of the energy in helping Canada to prosecute the war and defeat the Germans that he has in his speeches attacking me he would have been rendering a real service to Canada.
The hon. member said that he rose in the House on that occasion before six o'clock and that, due to the courtesy of the Speaker and the leader of the Government, his speech was adjourned until the House resumed in the evening. That is perfectly true. I was here up to six o'clock but I was not here in the evening for the reason that I have stated before, but I repeat that the hon. member knew when he rose that he was going to spend a great part of his time in a personal attack upon me and yet he had neither the manliness
nor the courage to give me notice of the fact so that I might have an opportunity of making answer in his presence and in the presence of hon. members of the House to the false statements that he was about to make, statements which he knew to be false when he made them. He said that he expected that I would rise in my place to a question of privilege when I returned to the House. Well the hon. gentleman had the opportunity last session of rising to a question of privilege in order to attempt to reply to me?


Mr. CAHILL:: He did.


Newton Wesley Rowell: He did, but his inability to proceed because the rules of the House prevented showed how utterly absurd it would have been for me to attempt to reply to him.


Frank S. Cahill: Show some courage.


Newton Wesley Rowell: I will deal with my hon. friend in time; do not worry. At that time I inquired of the Speaker of the House and I found that the rule is perfectly clear, that a debate once closed cannot be reopened during the session, and that when a debate is closed it cannot be referred to in a subsequent debate. So it is clear that I was precluded by the rules of the House from dealing with the matter on that occasion. The member for Russell said my colleagues " let the debate go by default." My colleagues reported to me-hon. members in the House will appreciate the reason-that in view of the inflammatory character of the appeal made by the member for Russell their view was that if a reply was made in the same spirit it might involve an acrimonious racial and religious controversy in' this House which would greatly aggravate the conditions in Quebec at that time; and it was their desire to avoid that. They permitted the debate to close in my absence, and I was a victim of the situation; I was unable to reply on that occasion.
My hon. friend has stated that although I did reply in December, 1918, in Bowman-ville, and in September, 1919, in this House, I only dealt with some of the accusations he made, and the other accusations [DOT]still stand undenied and unanswered. Mr. Speaker, that statement by the hon. member is but another evidence of his recklessness in regard to the truth. Let him turn to my address delivered at Bow-manville-he has a copy of it-and he will find that I said I was taking up but a few of the idle and false stories that had been circulated as samples of the character of

the whole; and speaking in this House last session I dealt with the matter in the same way. My hon. friend will find on page 415 of the Unrevised Hansard of 1919 this statement:
I will not trouble the House with the other petty matters mentioned in the speech of the hon. member for Russell. They are as misleading and as false as the one with which I have dealt.
Yet in the face of these statements in both speeches, the hon. gentleman rises in the House this afternoon and tells hon. gentlemen that I did not deny his statements. I have practised in the Courts of the Province of Ontario for almost thirty years, and I speak with a consciousness of what I am saying when I state that in all my experience of witnesses in the box I never met one more reckless as regards the truth than the hon. member for Russell.
iMay I now take up some of these other matters. I will not take up the time of the House to go into them all; I will just take a few .more samples so that hon. gentlemen may see the character of the statements made by the hon. member for Russell.
The hon. member started off this afternoon by saying that I bad not answered the charge he made out that I had served the Ross Government for profit, or had found it very profitable to become solicitor in the re-organization of the great Soo Corporation. In the statement which he made on that occasion he said that in the course of four or five years I had added to my personal earnings, or profits a sum over $100,000. Well, Mr. Speaker, when I read that, it reminded me of the story of the death of Mark Twain. The report of Mark Twain's death was cabled across the sea and when the newspaper reporter went to his residence to inquire__ about it he was shown into the presence of Mark Twain himself. Asked about the truth of tihe rumour, Mark Twain said the report of his death was greatly exaggerated. The statement of my hon. friend is greatly exaggerated. I do not recall at the present time what the fees of my firm were during those years, but I will say to the hon. member that the greater part of those fees were not earned because of political association with the Ross Government or any other Government. My firm were appointed counsel to the Soo Corporation in July, 1904. The Ross Government went out of power in January, 1905, and when there was a Conservative Government in power in the province of Ontario, the greater part of these fees were earned by my firm as counsel for

the Lake Superior Corporation. From the very fact that the Government had guaranteed a loan of $2,000,000 that company did have fairly close relations with the Government. In some respects it was dependent on the Government's good will; and I am not violating any confidence, I am simply stating a fact, when I say that when the Government of Sir Ja/mes Whitney came into power, Sir James thought the position of solicitor for the corporation was a political appointment, and he sent to the president of the corporation the name of a Conservative lawyer in the city of Toronto whom he desired to have substituted for myself as solicitor for that corporation. Although the company was to some extent dependent on the Government they said "the choice of our counsel is a matter for the board of directors of the corporation. We are satisfied with the service that is being rendered and we intend to continue the same counsel." So, notwithstanding the representation of the Prime Minister of Ontario my firm was continued as counsel for the Soo Company. Now, if .my hon. friend had said that in the practice of my profession, I could earn $25,000 .a year I am not prepared to deny it. The fact is that I could .in the practice of my profession earn that amount but I would, Mr. Speaker, like to ask this:	If I could earn that amount in
my profession and I came down here to serve my country at $7,000 a year, what evidence is that of my desire to profit at the expense of my country?
The hon. gentleman seemed to attach great weight to the fact that when I made a trip overseas some political friends contributed to the expense, and I think he mentioned in that connection three thousand and some odd dollars. Well, that again, like the report of Mark Twain's death, was greatly exaggerated. The amount was not so large as that, but it is true that some of the Liberals of the Province of Ontario did provide the bulk of the expenses of that trip. Why did they provide it? They said they believed I could do more valuable work in recruiting throughout the Province of Ontario if I had the opportunity of coming in touch with the actual conditions at. the front-seeing the men in the trenches and the work they were doing, and then come back and appeal to my fellow citizens to support them. The only contribution I made was giving my time, I took it away from my profession-and the consequent loss such as any man must meet in absenting himself from his profession-but the expense was paid in that way. My only regret is that

some of the friends of the hon. member for Russell did not do the same thing for him. If he had seen the conditions overseas-the actual need of reinforcements to fill up the ranks of our gallant men and of making every effort to support them in their struggle against Germany, it is incredible to me that the hon. gentleman would have taken the course which he afterwards did in reference to the war.
The hon. gentleman also says that I sent a friend of mine, Colonel Deacon, up to bribe a citizen of London to desert the Liberal party on the promise of a position as Chairman of the War Purchasing Commission. That is just as false as the other statements of the hon. member for Russell. What are the facts? The hon. members oi this House know the character of the War Purchasing Commission. Membership in it was not a position of emolument, it was an opportunity for service. The members of that War Commission were not paid a salary, they gave their services in an honorary capacity. When Sir Edward Kemp was appointed and went overseas as Overseas Minister of Militia there was a vacancy on the Board. It was not the position of Chairman because it was understood that Sir Hormisdas Laporte, who had rendered such splendid service would be made Chairman, but it was dhe position of one of the members of the Commission. What did I do? I am glad my hon. friend from West Lambton (Mr. Pardee) is in the House.
I consulted my hon. friend from West Lambton (Mr. Pardee) as to who in his judgment would be the best man to select from among the business men of Western Ontario who were Liberals as a member for this board. We discussed the matter together and agreed upon three names, as my hon. friend will remember. The first was Mr. Gordon McGregor, of the Ford Company at Windsor, the other was Mr. Gartshore of the MoClary Foundry Company, London, and the third was Mr. Little of the Robinson, Little Company. My hon. friend and I agreed that if we could secure any one of those men as a member of the War Purchasing Commission-not in an office of emolument, but without emolument the Government and the country would be fortunate. I first asked Mr. McGregor if he would accept a position on that commission. He was not a supporter of this Government; on the contrary, he supported my hon. friend from North Essex (Mr. Kennedy), and if the latter gentleman was in the House he would tell us so, I have no doubt. Mr. McGregor 17
was not asked if he would support this Government or not; he was asked if he would be prepared to serve Canada in that position. After giving the matter due consideration he was compelled to decline owing to urgent business demands. Then we approached Mr. Gartshore, who declined to serve for a similar reason. The third gentleman to whom the hon. member for Russell referred this afternoon was then offered the position. But the circumstances stated by him this afternoon in connection with that offer I can only characterize as a yarn concocted out of whole cloth. The sole object which animated my hon. friend from West Lambton and myself was to get one of the best possible Liberal business men in Ontario to take that important and responsible post in the public service.
Then the member for Russell referred to another matter. He stated that I had not answered his charge that my place in Parliament was practically bought by offering a seat in the Senate to the Hon. Senator Mullholland. I am sorry that my hon. friend is not in the House to-night. " He who fights and runs away may live to fight another day." But, Mr. Speaker, I desire to place my answer on Hansard so that he can read it if he will not hear it:	If
after the bluster of the past two years of what this giant would do to me if he had an opportunity, he has done his best this afternoon, I am prepared for him to return to the attack as often as he likes, but I can assure the House that anything he can say will be as false no doubt as the statements he has already made.
I would like to ask my hon. friend (Mr. Murphy) if he were present what he would say to these parallel cases:	When the
hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding) joined the Cabinet of the late Right Hon. Sir Wilfrid Laurier Mr. F. G. Forbes was the member for that constituency and was appointed to the Bench in order that Mr. Fielding might have a seat in this House. Would the hon. member for Russell say that Mr. Fielding bribed Mr. Forbes in order that he might get a seat in this House, or that the late Right Hon. Sir Wilfrid Laurier bribed Mr. Forbes for the same purpose?
When the late Hon. A. G. Blair entered the Government he had no seat. Did Mr. Blair or Sir Wilfrid Laurier bribe Mr. E. G. King, the then member for Sun-bury and Queen's who resigned in favour of Mr. Blair, by a seat in the Senate. Will hon. members on the other side suggest that when Hon. Mr. Templeman came into
REVISED EDITION*

the House Mr. George Riley from Victoria, B.C. was bribed because he retired and was given a seat in the Senate in order to provide a place for Mr. Templeman? When the Hon. Mr. Graham entered this House did he bribe Mr. Derbyshire the member for Brockville to make way for him by the promise of a seat in the Senate? Did the late Bir Wilfrid Laurier bribe Mr. Derbyshire by a similar promise? When the Hon. Senator Beith did not accept nomination in Durham in 1904, but gave it to Sir Alan Aylesworth, was he bribed to do so? It is true he was not appointed to the Senate immediately, and some of his friends thought he was passed over, but in due time he was appointed. Will my hon. friends opposite suggest that Senator Beith was bribed? Then came a change of Government and Sir Robert Borden came into power. Dr. J. W. Daniel retired from St. John, N.B. and was made Senator to make way for Hon. J. D. Hazen; and Mr. George Taylor retired from Leeds to make way for my hon. friend, the ex-Minister of Finance (Sir Thomas White); and Mr. George Gordon retired from Nipissing in order that the late Hon. Frank Cochrane might become Minister of Railways, were these members biibed to give up their seats? No hon. member w'ill make any such suggestion. Every hon. member knows that it has been the custom and tradition in both political parties when an hon. member makes way for a Cabinet minister to recognize the public spirit of that member by appointment to the Senate or to the Bench, or to some other suitable public position.
Now, my hon. friend may say that that is not a wise policy nor a good practice. Well, if he will advocate a reform of the Senate and a complete change in the method of appointment, I for one will support him. Mr. Speaker, I am one of those Liberals who believe that the Liberal Party failed in its duty while in power in that it did not carry out its pledge to reform the Senate. I still believe that the Senate should be reformed and made more representative of the sentiment of the people, and I stand on the policy upon which the Liberal Party stood during all that period.
But the crowning piece of casuistry, Mr. Speaker, of which the member for Russell has been guilty is his reference to the " Secretarial Fund." Let me read to you, Mr. Speaker, the exact statement made by Mr. Murphy in the House in 1918 with reference to that fund. He then said:
Now, Sir, what happened when the hon. gentleman entered the provincial field of politics?
[Mr. Rowell-I
With his usual presence of mind he arranged with his friends to form a committee for the purpose of raising a fund to guarantee him against any loss while engaged in his work as Provincial leader. Mr. A. E. Ames, of Toronto, was chairman of the committee, and in addition to Sir Joseph Flavelle, the contributors included several other Toronto gentlemen. The fund itself was called the " Secretarial Fund," and I am informed that it varied in amount from $9,000 to $11,000 a year. Again, the exact amount raised in any one year is immaterial ; the point it establishes is that as Provincial leader the hon. member for Durham was protected against any sacrifice while he retained that position.
I appeal to hon. members, just -as I did last September, what meaning did you take out .of that statement; and what meaning did the hon. mfember for Russell intend that you should take out of that statement? Exactly the meaning that you and the people of this country took out of it, namely, that out of that fund moneys had been paid to me to compensate me for my loss of time, in connection with my work as Provincial leader.
The hon. member for Russell referred to the letter he wrote to Mr. Bowman, Chief Liberal Whip. Why did he not read the letter he received from Mr. Bowman? Mr. Bowman is a supporter of my hon. friends on the other side of the House. When he read the statement by the member for Russell, knowing how false it was, although he was not a political supporter of mine, he felt compelled to enter his protest against such a false statement. It was the same with contributors to the fund. Let me read a letter, Mr. Speaker, that the committee got from one of the most distinguished Liberals and one of the most influential supporters of my hon. friend the leader of the Opposition, in Eastern Ontario. His name is known from one end of the province of Ontario to the other. What did this contributor say in his letter to Mr. Ames, the chairman, in reference to this matter? I quote:
- After being in the South the latter part of the winter, I have read the speech of the Hon. Mr. Murphy on my return home, and, amongst other things in his attack on Mr. Rowell, I note with considerable interest and surprise that he states that the Secretarial Fund to the extent of nine to eleven thousand dollars a year was paid to Mr. Rowell.
The member for Russell did not say that, but that (was the inference that was conveyed and the inference that this contributor to the fund drew from the hon. gentleman's remarks.
As I know, you were chiefly instrumental of raising this Fund, and I think were the Treasurer. I would ask if Mr, Murphy is right in this. I cannot conceive that such a thing is possible, for, when I was asked to subscribe to this Fund, I was not only told it was a Secre-

tarial Fund, but actually for the purpose of paying Mr. Howell's secretarial expenses, such as secretaries, postage, etc., etc.
While Mr. Rowell will wait his own good time, I have no doubt this point is one he ' should not fail to take up on the floor of the House, and, in the meantime, as a subscriber, I would like to know if Mr. Murphy is wrong.
Now, the member for Russell said this afternoon that in his letter to Mr. Bowman he had said that he did not say I had shared .personally in the fund mentioned, but that it was to guarantee me against loss. Well, if it was to guarantee me against loss it meant that I (would have to take money out of the fund, because I was losing in the practice of my profession on account of the time that I was giving to the work of leader of the Opposition. But I want to- take the statement of the hon. member as it stands. According to his own admission he knew that I had not received one dollar out of that fund; yet he came to the House of Commons and with deliberate ingenuity frames a statement conveying a totally false impression and framed it in such a way that he thinks he can crawl out from responsibility When it found out. Mr. (Speaker, the man who with cool calculation, deliberately surveying a situation, believes that it is to his profit to lie and does deliberately lie', open and above-board *and is prepared to take the consequences if he is found out-we may have' no respect jfor that man, but we do not despise him. But the man who toy ingenuity conveys an equally false impression and does it in such a way that he thinks he can escape the .consequences otf his falsehood, that man adds to the "sin of falsehood that of cowardice.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I regret to have to ask *the hon. gentleman to retract the statement, which obviously refers to the -member for Russell, with regard to deliberately concocting a false statement. The remark is certainly unparliamentary.


Newton Wesley Rowell: Mr. Speaker, I was putting a hypothetical case.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: The hon. member may not evade the rule toy putting forward in the form of an hypothesis what he cannot put forward in a direct -statement.


Newton Wesley Rowell: Then, Mr. Speaker, when the speech comes round for correction I will strike out the words.
Mr. SPEAKER (rising).


Newton Wesley Rowell: In deference to your ruling, Mr. Speaker-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Withdraw.
Some hon,. MEMBERS: Order.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Order.
, Mr. ROWELL: I do withdraw in deference to Mr. Speaker's ruling. I want to Jreep within the rules of Parliament, although it is difficult to do so when describing the conduct of the member for Russell.
Now, then, the hon. member suggested- it is so small a matter that it is hardly worthy of note in passing-that some of my firm's legal expenses had been paid out of this fund. The extract he read to the House showed that that statement was untrue. May I refer for a moment to the report of the secretary which the hon. member read to the House. He appeared to get a good deal of entertainment out of that. Well, if it afforded him any comfort I am glad, because so far as T was concerned it was of interest to me, and I am glad he has drawn attention to it. But the point which I desire to draw particular attention is the reference in the report to the Yojang Men's Liberal Federation. The hon. member referred to that organization as being wholly independent of the Liberal party and conveyed the impression that that was the organization of which I was the head in connection with the work of the provincial Liberal party. If that is his view he is wholly mistaken. That organization was a federation of the young Liberal clubs of Ontario. The leader of the Opposition knows of the organization; other hon. members on the other side know of it. It was independent of the actual political organization, for this reason: The young Liberals of Ontario, the members of these clubs, desired to have freedom to express their own opinions on public issues. I believed that it was in the public interest that they should have that freedom; they preferred independence to any association with the political organization. But the point to which I particularly wish to refer is this. The hon. member said that the motto of this Young Liberal Federation was "service," and he seemed to get a great deal of pleasure out of repeating that word. He said it looked as if this was the organization of some (Sunday school class having no relation to the Liberal party. Mr. Speaker, it is because a section of the Liberal party of Ontario, the section which could be influenced by the member for Russell, had wholly lost the spirit of service and were in politics as part of the game and for what they could get out of it, that the Liberal party received such a crushing defeat in Ontario on more than one oc-

easion. My hon. friend should learn the meaning of the word "service." I say it to the credit and the honour of the young men who were members of these clubs and who had as their motto the word "service" that when a few months later war broke out and the call went forth for young men to volunteer, the ranks of these clubs were depleted because of the numbers of their members who, inspired by the spirit of service, went forth to fight for their country. I can only regret that the member for Russell did not even during the course of the war learn the true significance of the word "service."
The hon. member made light of what he called the "Sunday school idea of service." Well, if that be the Sunday school idea of service, then I stand in this House for the Sunday school idea of service; for it is only the spirit of service that can save the country in such an hour as this, just as that spirit saved it in the critical days of the war. It was because that spirit of service did not animate the member for Russell and others that when the critical hour came and members of the Liberal party and others had to decide whether they would choose the ideal of service-service for the men overseas; service to their country-service to the cause for which we were fighting -there was a cleavage, and the men who stood for service joined together in the formation and support of Union Government. I do not wonder that the hon. member for Russell does not care for the word "service," neither voluntary nor compulsory, neither civil nor military.
The hon. member for Russell said that there were several other funds. I think, if I recall aright, there were two he mentioned; the prohibition fund and the campaign fund of 1914. Well, his knowledge is somewhat better than mine. So far as I am aware, there was only one fund, the prohibition campaign fund of 1914, which was the one fund for the two purposes, because that campaign was fought on the issue "abolish the bar." The hon. member for Russell said that he would like to see a list of the contributors to that fund. I have never seen the list myself. The fund was raised by a provincial Liberal committee in Ontario and was administered by them in connection with the campaign of 1914; but I can tell you this, Mr. Speaker, because it came to my knowledge, that while other Liberals in the city of Ottawa contributed to that fund and their names will be found on the list, the name of the hon. member for Russell will not appear there, for he declined to give a contribution to assist the provincial Liberal party in its campaign of 
"abolish the bar" in 1914. Therefore, I was not surprised when, in the June session of last year, we came to vote on the Government Prohibition Bill, the hon. member for Russell led the Opposition in rising to oppose the resolution which- the Prime Minister moved in the House. Perhaps that is another reason for his opposition to me, namely, that he does not agree with my views on that issue as he does not on some other issues. He suggests that I received some compensation at some time out of the prohibition fund. Here he makes a direct statement. Well, that is equally false with the other statement. I never received a cent of compensation, direct or indirect, out of that fund nor out of any other fund for my personal service at any time whatever. I never received a cent of contribution for any address that I made on that question or on any other question at any time in my life. I am glad to say that I have always been able to afford-if you care to put the case on that ground-to render a .measure of service in the causes in which I believe, without accepting any compensation for my service.
My hon. friend next finds something in which he takes a great delight. He says: Now, I have this man; he is a tax evader, and he says that I appealed from taxation in Toronto because I was living in Ottawa and-my income as a Privy Councillor would be exempt in the city of Ottawa. If a Privy Councillor's salary was exempt under the law why was I not entitled to the benefit of the exemption. My recollection, however, is that the matter was taken up while I was in England by my office and they lodged the appeal, but may I add I did not know at that time that, under the agreement with the city of Ottawa, a Privy Councillor's salary was exempt from taxation. I do not believe it is a sound principle that either a Privy Councillor's salary or a Civil Servant's salary should be exempt from municipal taxation, and I am glad that I am a member of a Government which has negotiated with the city of Ottawa a new agreement whereby that exemption has been wiped out. No longer will a Privy Councillor's salary be exempt from taxation.
My hon. friend devoted much time to my North Bay address. I dealt with that .matter at the last session of the House, and it is not my intention to-night to go over the matters I then discussed. Hon. members who wish to see my statement can find it in Hansard as of that date; but there are just one or two observations I wish to make in view of the remarks of the hon. member for Russell to-day. The hon. member stated

that he had a letter that I had written to somebody, I think, he said in the month of January, 1918, in which letter I, in effect, admitted that I had made a statement without any knowledge of the facts and that I was only then proceeding to investigate the facts. I am sorry the hon. member did not produce the letter, and he did not tell us to whom the letter was written. So far as I can find in my records, I can only locate two letters written about that time. It may be that either or both of these letters have come into the hands of the hon. member for Russell. If they have, I only regret that he did not read either or both of them to the House. But just to see what I did say on that occasion in reference to this matter, permit me to turn to one of these letters, because my statement on this point does not materially differ in the two letters. I received a letter which enclosed a clipping from my North Bay address, and I was asked as to the correctness of that statement, the writer stating that I had many Roman Catholic friends and he was sure I did not desire to say anything disrespectful to my Roman Catholic friends. I replied:
I realize that many of my best friends are Roman Catholics, and I should deeply regret saying anything that would hurt their feelings, and particularly anything that was not fully warranted by the facts. I think the extract quoted hardly gives a fair view of what I Aid. I enclose herewith the context so that you may see just what I stated. If I am incorrect in the statement I should be very glad to know it, but my statement was based upon information received during the past two or three years from sources which I believe to be absolutely reliable. The position, which I was informed the members of those Orders took, was that this war was a judgment of Heaven against France for her apostasy from the Church and for the manner in which she had treated the Church.
Then, in discussing the matter further, I said:
I shall make further inquiries about the matter and see what the result is.
If the hon. member for Russell had either of these letters before him, he had before him the statement that what I said at that time was based on information which I had received during the past two or three years, but in view of the letters which I had received that I purposed making further inquiries in respect to the matter. I only want to add this one further word in reference to it. As I saitRin the House last session, and as I said in Bowmanville the year before, at the time I spoke, I did not know that members of religious orders had gone over to France to fight in the war. I said that, had I known that, I would have paid
them the tribute that I did to the other clergy of the Roman Catholic Church and which was undoubtedly their due. My view -and a fair reading of my statement will show it-was that I was not referring to the men who had gone overseas but to those in the province of Quebec who had remained behind. But I said then, and I repeat now, that if my language was capable of the construction that it applied to the men who had gone overseas, I regret it, because I would be the last man in the world to say anything disrespectful to or anything other than the warmest word of appreciation of men who had gone overseas to serve their country as these men did. But I should like to add this one word, that I am sure it is a matter of regret to all. the members of the House that, with these magnificent examples before him of heroic patriotism on th- part of members of religious orders in Quebec, the hon. member for Russell (Mr. Murphy) did not become a veritable Peter th Hermit, going from one end of the country to the other to rouse the people to follow the example of these men who went overseas. Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Russell only magnified their service and their sacrifice when he thought he could gain some political advantage and kudos for himself at the expense of a political opponent.
I shall not attempt to follow the hon. member through all the meanderings of that rambling and lengthy address of his.; It is a case Where the mountain laboured and brought forth a mouse. But I must mention one or two other matters.
The hon. member for Russell referred to loyalty to colleagues. I could hardly believe my ears when I heard him speaking of loyalty to colleagues, and I am sure there was more than one member seated either beside him or 'behind him who must have been astonished when tney heard those words from the hon. member for Russell, Hon. members on the Opposition side are not ignorant, and hon. members on the Government side are not' ignorant of the situation that has developed. The hon. member for Russell is a veritable political Jack-the-Ripper. When he cannot find an hon. member on this side of the House on wdiorn to practise the peculiar art in which he professes to have such ski'll, he turns to hon. members on his own side of the House.. No hon. member on the other side of the House enjoys in larger measure the confidence and esteem of members on both sides of the House than the chief Opposition Whip, the hon. member for Chateau-
[DOT]m

guay-Huntingdon (Mr. Robb). Everybody knows that the hon. member for Russell has been after his scalp. Why, Mr. Speaker? Because the leader of the Opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King), the Chief Whip (Mr. Robb), and the hon. member for Quebec East (Mr. Lapointe), and other hon. members on the other side of the House want to make that section of the Liberal party a national Liberal party, but the hon. member of Russell is determined to keep it merely a religious group. It is even reported that he does not stop at the Chief Whip and others but -challenges the supremacy even of the leader himself, and I have heard that the threat has been made that if he cannot have his way he may leave the party and join the United Farmers. Mr. Speaker, I do not know what crimes the hon. member for Marquette (Mr. Crerar) and the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Clark) and those who sit around them have committed, that they should deserve such a fate. "We all know the No Man's Land down there which they have established between themselves, and the official Opposition, and I can imagine that if the hon. member for Russell started to move his seat down that way, No Man's Land would soon be barricaded with benches and barbed wire to protect the farmers' group from receiving his assistance.


Mr. M. CLARK:: Keep your squabble to your own end.


Newton Wesley Rowell: That is what I am trying to do, Mr. Speaker. I am trying to protect my hon. friend from this addition to his ranks.


Michael Clark: We do not need any protection.


Newton Wesley Rowell: Speaking of the question of loyalty to colleagues the hon. member for Russe'll stated-and he read into my speech a statement which is not there- that I had said or words to that effect, that certain statements made by the hon. member for Marquette in Council indicated a position which he afterwards changed. There is no such statement in my speech. There is nothing in my whole speech which would justify such an inference. The hon. member for RuSsell knows if he read Hansard that when such a statement was hinted at by an hon. member on the other side of the House, it met with a very prompt and vigorous denial. No statement made by me was a disclosure of any confidence of Council, and the hon. member for Russell must have known that, if he read Hansard.
[Mr. Rowell. 1
It is just on a par with the other matters he mentions.
His childish talk about-the Grand Trunk, the Peace Treaty, and matters of that kind I shall not go into, nor shall I attempt to follow his ramblings through various other matters that came up in the course of his speech. In connection with a number of them, there will be plenty of opportunity later on in this House to discuss the real merits of the case. There may be differences of opinion on the question of the labour clauses of the Peace Treaty. If there are, there will be an opportunity in the House for hon. members to express their honest convictions, and I shall reserve what I have to say on that subject until that occasion.
It may be that some hon. mem-9 p.m. bers on the other side of the
House have repented of the approval given to the League of Nations. If so, when the Bulgarian Treaty comes up as the -Covenant of the League is repeated in that Treaty, there will be an opportunity for my hon. friends to, express their views on that occasion. I shall, therefore, not take up the time of the House in discussing it to-day. The hon. member for Russell also referred to the Mounted Police. There is a Bill before the House, and there will be estimates, relating to the Mounted Police, and I shall be glad to discuss the whole question of the Mounted Police either on the Bill or on the estimates. There is nothing that the hon. member has mentioned that I shall not be prepared to discuss'at the proper time and give the House full information, and make a defence, so far as any defence is needed, though I think none is needed of the position of the Government in connection with these matters.
But there is one thing I cannot pass over. The hon. member for Russell referred in a sneering way to the calling together of the patriotic women of Canada in a women's conference in the city of Ottawa in the early part of 1918, when the heads of the principal women's patriotic organizations from the Atlantic to the Pacific, met in conference in -this city in order that they might devise plans for more effective cooperation with the Government in the prosecution of the war. These patriotic and public-spirited women of Canada are made the butt for the-jests of the hon. member for Russell. I cannot believe that in those jests he voiced the sentiment of any member on the Opposition side except his own.
He also referred to the calling together of the Labour Conference. We shall have

an-opportunity of discussing that question when the Labour estimates come before the House, but I want to say that the Union Government took no wiser .step than when the Prime Minister (Sir Robert Borden) included in the Cabinet one of the recognized leaders of labour in Canada and further I believe the Government took a wise step when they invited the leaders of labour from all parts of Canada to come to Ottawa for a conference with the Government in order to establish the most harmonious relations possible between labour and the Government in the prosecution of the war. That policy of co-operation with labour has 'been pursued by Union Government from the day it was formed down to this date, and I submit with confidence that the magnificent position which labour has taken in Canada throughout the war, and the comparative industrial peace we have in this country as compared with practically every other country, is in no small measure due to the really sympathetic attitude of this Government towards the cause of labour in Canada and its desire to co-operate with labour.
The member fox Russell referred to the Department of Health. The hon. member, Mr. Speaker, suggested throughout that I was unfair to the Roman Catholics and the French Canadians. What I have stated before, I repeat here to-night: I challenge any man to point to any statement I have ever .made reflecting upon the French Canadian people of this country; I challenge any man to point to any statement that I have ever .made reflecting upon the Roman Catholic church. The most important appointment I have been called upon to recommend since I became a member of the Government has been that of Deputy Minister of Public Health. Who was appointed to thait position?-a French Canadian and a Roman Catholic-not because he was a French Canadian and a Roman Catholic hut because, surveying the whole field with a dbsire to choose the best .possible .man to serve the people of Canada in that important post, I came to the conclusion that Dr. Amyot, the present Deputy Minister of Health, with -a splendid record overseas, with great professional achievements to his credit, was the best man in Canada for the post. So long as I am in public life, so long as I am called upon to administer public affairs, I shall seek in all appointments, in so far as the Government has any voice in them, and in all my dealing with the people of this country, to consider and deal
with every man on his merits irrespective of his race or religion.
The hon. member announced in opening that the reason he had made his speech was to vindicate the members of his church. I have too much respect for the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic church to believe that the hon. member for Russell had been commissioned for any such business. I do not believe he speaks with any right or authority on behalf of the ecclesiastics of that church. But I have no hesitation in saying that if he did speak with authority, there are not enough ecclesiastics in that church, or an any church, or in all the churches of Canada combined to induce me to depart from the path of duty .as I see it in ithe administration of public affairs.
The member closed with some references to Union Government and the amendment before the House. I have already taken up a longer time than I had intended and I will not discuss these matters further, except to say that Union Government was formed in an hour of grave, national crisis for a great national purpose. It was formed for the war and for reconstruction after the war as the programmes presented to the people showed. What were its achievements during the war? By reason of the strength of sentiment behind the Government, .by reason of the compulsory Military Service Act which they had at their command, they were able to reinforce our troops .at the front and keep them up to strength. Nay, .more, they were able to keep every battalion at the front one hundred men over strength; they were able to .add to our .machine gun equipment and personnel;' they were able to .add to our engineers and to all the forces that made the corps a real effective fighting unit, so that when the critical time came, when the hour struck for the great advance on the 8th August, 1918, .the Canadian armies in association with the Australian troops struck the blow, and started the .movement which culminated in the rolling back and decisive defeat of the German forces and which finally led to .the victory of the allied forces on the western front.
That was made possible by the unanimity of sentiment of the Canadian people on the war issue and by the power of the Government to secure the necessary reinforcements to back up the troops overseas. If Union Government had no other reason for its existence the achievements of our heroio troops in 1918 will s.lways .be the justification, the vindication, and the glory of the

men and women throughout Canada who formed and supported this Government.
What our troops achieved on the field of battle, our representatives at the Peace Conference secured in the council of the nations. It is a great record. It has been ably presented to the House. I wish I had had the opportunity of expounding some of its features rather than dealing with these small personal matters -which have distracted the attention of the House for the greater part of the day.
I leave the matter in the judgment of my fellow members. I would be prepared to leave it to the judgment of hon. members on the other side of the House. I leave it to the judgment of the people of this country. I claim no special virtue, no special privileges. All I can claim is that to the measure of my ability, in the hour of my country's stress and need, I have sought to do my duty as God has given me the light to see it.


Mr. ERNEST LAPOINTE (Quebec East):: Mr. Speaker, I desire to confine the few remarks I intend to make to the amendment moved by my hon. friend the leader of the Opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King) and I shall reserve for other occasions the discussion of the few subjects which are mentioned in the speech from the Throne and such other questions as are of great interest at the present time to the people of Canada. Being a man of peace, I feel still less inclined to interfere in the conflict between my hon. friend from Ruesell (Mr. Murphy) and the hon. the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Rowell). Of course, as my hon. friend from Russell has shown this afternoon, successfully, I believe, the President of the Privy Council is a man of many activities but I think that his importance does not justify my taking up any more of the time of the House in discussing his personality. May I tell him that I have read many of the speeches he made in 1917 or thereabouts. I am sure that when he recalls some of the statements he made then he would to-day rather that they had been unmade. They will stick to him. They are like the shirt of Nessus that clung to the body of Hercules and they will cling to him as long as he remains in public life in Canada.
I desire to offer to the mover and the seconder of the Address my most sincere congratulations. The hon. member for London (Mr. Cronyn) has made a speech possessing qualities and delivered in a manner we would like to admire very frequently in this House. After all, attractiveness

of speech only adds to the power and strength of argument. Many of the statements made by my hon. friend from London show that he has been rocked in the cradle of Liberalism and it is a matter of regret, and a painful sight to us, to see him in such bad company. I hope he will not remain there very long, for it is hard to compromise with the devil. As to my hon. friend from Pictou (Mr. McGregor), his wrong political principles are firmly rooted and his case is desperate, although I congratulate him for the excellence of his speech.
* The leader of the Opposition has made a case which, though we are at the end of this debate still stands unanswered. Every hon. gentleman in this House, notwithstanding denials to the contrary, knows that this amendment embodies the wishes and the practically unanimous opinion of the people of Canada at the present time. The first thing we must do to help the solution of our national problems, the first step' towards re-establishing the normal affairs of this country, is the restoration in its entirety of responsible Government and the, election of a representative Parliament. In order to be effective, in order to ensure the proper and normal representation of this country, or of any democratic country, Parliament must reflect and he the image, must return and must reflect the peculiarities of the nation: It must he the expression of the general will and the conscience of the people. Parliament is the instrument by which the will of the people is executed, therefore it must represent the views of the majority of the people; and every citizen has a sacred right to his proportionate share in the representation. When the majority in a Parliament no longer represents the majority of the people in the country, the decisions of that Parliament carry no influence and have no weight. Those principles are so elementary, they are at the basis of the proper working of constitutional government to such an extent, that they cannot he challenged; and I am sure that every member of this House agrees with me in so far as these premises are concerned.


Mr. BURNHAM:: May I ask the hon.
gentleman if he considers that the members of the Liberal Party do not represent the constituencies which they .stand for?


Ernest Lapointe: I will answer my hon. friend in a few minutes if he will be good enough to wait. Who will dare say, Mr. Speaker, that the present Government re-

presents the majority of the- Canadian people? It does not represent, it does not possess and enjoy the confidence of an appreciable portion of the Canadian people at the present time. Why, the Government which is supported by the majority of the members of this House is afraid to meet the- Canadian people. It has let, and is letting, the elections go to its opponents by default. The habits of the ostrich are instinctive in many human beings, but they have never been the means of noteworthy success. The only comfort my hon. friends opposite can derive from electoral results was in the case of Assiniboia, and they have referred to that election in most of their' speeches. Indeed my hon. friends seem to have a deplorable lack of humour. It is a piece of delightful irony to hear them mention that election as a blow at the Opposition. There was a constituency which elected a supporter of this Government in 1917 by a majority of over 5,000 votes. The Government kept that constituency without representation for a few sessions, and then when it was compelled to issue the writs it had no candidate in the field to represent its views. True, a Liberal candidate was defeated by my hon. friend from Assiniboia (Mr. Gould) who, f am told has always been a supporter of the Liberal Government. But, Sir, what is one of the main arguments which are used by the group of which that hon. gentleman (Mr. Gould) is a member? Their strongest, and apparently most effective, argument-erroneous though it be as a statement of fact-is that the Liberal party are not- vigorous enough in its Opposition to this. Government, that we have too many points of resemblance with hon. gentlemen opposite. Surely if the Liberal candidate in Assiniboia was defeated because his political views were not far enough removed from those of the members of the Government then the Government have little ground to hail his election as a victory, a moral victory, for them. Of course they are getting panicky and men in a panic grasp at shadows. Why should not my hon. friends opposite be candid and frank with themselves and members of the House? They still quote statistics of the election of 1917 to substantiate their claim that they have the support of this country. I understand my hon. friend from Leeds (Sir Thomas White) advanced this argument to support his speech yesterday. But, Sir, we are not living in 1917. We are Canadians of 1920 and we must discuss political questions and facts in the light of conditions as they are to-day.


Mr. WALLACE:: How many members
supporting Union Government would be elected in the Province of Quebec in 1920?


Ernest Lapointe: Not one. No longer
will the Government and its supporters be allowed to evade facts and responsibilities by self indulgence in the monotonous repetition of war cries. Why did the hon. gentleman mention the large majorities secured in 1917 with the help of a doctored franchise?


Mr. BUREAU:: And badly doctored too.


Ernest Lapointe: The constituency of
Assiniboia, in 1917, gave to the Government a majority of over 5,000; in 1919 it gave not a single vote to the Government. The County of Glengarry-Stormont unanimously elected a supporter of this Government in 1917; my hon. friend from that riding (Mr. Kennedy) was elected in 1919 by, I believe, about 5,000 majority.


Mr. SMITH:: What was he before politically?


Ernest Lapointe: I know he is a United Farmer of Ontario now, but I judge by the glow of conscience which I see on his face that he was formerly a Liberal. The County of North Ontario elected the late Colonel Sharpe as a supporter of this Government in 1917, by a majority of over 1,600, in fact, he polled twice the number of votes that were given his opponent; this year my hon. friend, the new member for North Ontario (Mr. Halbert) was elected by a majority, I believe, of 200 or 300 votes.


Ernest D'Israeli Smith: Not quite.


Ernest Lapointe: I will take off a few votes if it pleases my hon. friend. The County of Quebec East in 1917, gave 600 votes to the Union Government; in 1919 it did not give one single vote to that side, the two candidates vying with each other in their opposition to the Government.
How many hon. gentlemen opposite would be returned if the amendment of my hon. Leader were to carry? I do not wonder that the prospect of an election should be so abhorrent to gentlemen whose parliamentary life is limited by and based upon the life of this present Parliament. Three by-elections are to be held presently, and there are now Liberal candidates in the field. Has the Government a candidate in any of those constituencies? There is none in Kamour-aska at the present time. I most cordially invite my right hon. friend the Acting Prime Minister (Sir George Foster) to inaugurate in that splendid country the campaign of political education which he told us the

other night he was about to open. There are no finer and more courteous people in the world than the good electors of Kamouraska, and my right hon. friend would certainly get a fine welcome from them, though I could not give him much hope as to the degree of support they would give to his movement. The Government have no candidate in St. James at present-perhaps they may have one shortly. They have no candidate in Timiskaming, though [DOT] the Conservatives of the division have nominated a straight Conservative candidate-nobody would consent to run as the candidate of this worn-out, abnormal and unpopular Government. I have no doubt that that Tory gentleman will be defeated, but even if he were elected, would that be a victory for the Government? He does not represent the Government in his candidacy, h<j represents the party led to-day by the Hon. Robert Rogers, who said a few days ago that the members of this Government were a lot of second-hand dealers, tinkers and jobbers.
We have to come to this point, Mr. Speaker, that the Government does not replace the Ministers who are withdrawing because their successors could not be elected in any constituency, and as a result whole provinces are no longer represented in the Cabinet. The threat that this Government may hang on for another year or two years, as was insinuated by my hon. friend the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Meighen) the other night, is a challenge to the people of Canada, it is a challenge to democracy; it is a challenge to the proper and normal working of our constitutional Government- I will go a step further and say that when ministers disappear and cannot be replaced, such a threat is a challenge to Providence: And it is always dangerous, even for men stronger than my hon. friend the Minister of the Interior, to defy the Almighty.
One of the speakers on the other side stated that the question raised by the amendment was a question of " ins " and " outs." This hon. gentleman should realize that whoever succeeds the present Government-and the succession cannot be very long delayed-will have a terrible mess to clear up and that nobody is very anxious, from a personal point of view, to take the succession. This Government has made matters easy for their successors in one respect only: that in almost all fields the latter are bound to shine in comparison. But the hon. gentleman is right to this extent, that the difference in the point of view as to this Parliament having no right or mandate to exist any longer-a difference which must be very great as between mem-

bers on the.other side of the House and the members on this side of the House and the other citizens of the country-is the normal difference between the men who look on from without and those who share from within. But perhaps this attitude of the Government was to be expected. The instinct of self-preservation is strong in all created things, and governments are not more free from it than the men of whom they are composed. However, they cannot deceive anybody-not even themselves,- and their voice during this debate was rather uncertain and nervous, being at times like the voice of a scared child who in the dark forest sings in an attempt to keep its spirits up.
The hon. member for Parkdale (Mr. Mowat) said that the present undeniable hostility of the people towards the Government was temporary and would soon pass away. Is this the opinion of the Government? Is this the cause of their present humiliating attitude? Do they believe that this great, steady, long, continued movement of the public mind is going to stop? Do they expect any change in the public estimation of their misdeeds and omissions? Are they waiting until such a change occurs? If so, they resemble the man in Horace who lay on the bank of a river expecting every moment that it would pass by and leave him a clear passage, not knowing the depth and abundance of the fountain that feeds the river, not knowing that it flows and will flow on forever.
I have referred to my hon. friend from Parkdale.(Mr. Mowat). I am not surprised at the stand he takes on the present amendment. Looking the other day over the files of the Toronto newspapers for the year 1917 -you will see, Mr. Speaker, that we have had so many bouquets thrown at us of late that I thought the reading over of certain literature would provide the antidote which would prevent the poison of pride overwhelming one, and I did not know at the time that my hon. friend from Russell would read his little circular this afternoon.
I happened to see a report of the proceedings of the convention which selected my hon. friend (Mr. Mowat) as a candidate for the constituency of Parkdale. There was a letter from the Right Hon. Prime Minister beseeching the good Conservatives of Park-dale to select my hon. friend; and then-one of the Ministers-I believe it was the Minister of Railways (Mr. J. D. Reid)-arose and spoke to the delegates. He told them that it was necessary in order to impress the country that this was a real Union ' Government that a Liberal should be se-

lected as the Government candidate for one of the Toronto seats. The president of the Tory Association then made a little speech. He said: All right; we are going to make the sacrifice, but remember, it is only a loan. So, valuable as my hon. friend is in this House, he is only a borrowed article. His contract will expire with the life of this Parliament, and these magnificent buildings will be deficient forever of one of their finest adornments.
Sir, as the leader of the Opposition eloquently said, we shall have unrest in Canada; peace and order will not be restored until the Canadian Parliament is brought into harmony with the Canadian people. It is indispensable to public safety that this should be done without any further delay. Everybody is longing for the time when things will come back to normal. Let us start at the most conspicuous point; let our politics, let our public life, come back to normal. This Government cannot pretend much longer to unite this country by dividing it. I do not now speak of the past. I respected the men who differed from us in 1917 through patriotic and conscientious motives; I would not have respected them if, feeling as they did feel at that time, they had acted otherwise. But I repeat, Sir, that I do not now speak of the past, and 1 emphatically state that any man who today proclaims this a Union Government is maintaining a sham and-supporting hypocrisy. Why, Sir, having arrayed province against province and race against race, they have succeeded by their disastrous policies, by violating their pledges, by breaking faith with their own supporters and dividing classes against classes, groups against groups, and occupations against occupations, in separating into fragments what was, under the illustrious leader who is now in his grave, a great united people.
No Government in the history of this country ever represented in lesser degree a united Canada. For the first time since union of Upper and Lower Canada one of the two great branches of the Canadian family is practically not represented in the administration of the affairs of the country.


Ernest D'Israeli Smith: Whose fault is that?


Ernest Lapointe: I will tell my hon.
friend. It is indeed a tragical joke to apply the word "Union" to the work of disruption which the right hon. Prime Minister (Sir Robert Borden) has been unfortunate enough to achieve. It has been urged by gentlemen on the other side-and I am free to admit it-that the Prime Minister has endeavoured to afford some sort of redress
to an awkward situation. But under the present. conditions, in view of the circumstances which preceded, accompanied and followed the accession to office of the present Government, no true and worthy representative of those to whom I now have reference can, with any sense of dignity, become one of its members. Some gentlemen opposite have said that the Government is not responsible for that anomaly; that those of the Canadian people who refused to elect supporters of the Union- Government cannot complain of being unrepresented. They are indeed quite right as to the utter impossibility of the people of whom I now speak electing a member of the present Government. Sir, it only goes to show that the situation is abnormal and unnatural. In order that we may resume the sane, safe and healthy conditions of our public life and of the civilization established by the builders of the country, by the great men of the past, the members of the Government must realize that they are an obstacle to our national progress and are blocking the way to the unity of Canada and to a fair and normal working out of the constitution.


Thomas George Wallace: Mr. Speaker-


Ernest Lapointe: My hon. friend has put questions to me which are really not of sufficient importance to justify my allowing him to interrupt my remarks.
This Government was elected in 1917 for a special purpose; it has now no further mandate to carry on the affairs of the country. What is the present task of Parliament? To place the national Budget on a stable foundation; to work out new plans for the promotion .and regulation of trade; to cope with the problems of inflated currency and depreciated exchange, and to establish satisfactory working relations between capital and labour so that national production may make headway against industrial disorganization and general want. But the present Parliament was elected on an issue that had no bearing upon the work that is to be done. It has no mandate to formulate a programme or to execute one when it is decided upon. In refusing to accede to the clamour of public opinion, to the . request that they relinquish the reins of office, the members of the Government and their supporters in the House are breaking faith with thousands of electors who voted for Union Government upon the understanding and subject to the pledge that such Government was formed for one purpose and one purpose only, and would automatically go out o,f office with the coming

of peace. The Minister of the Interior (Mr. Meighen) and other hon. gentlemen to the *contrary notwithstanding, such a pledge was given on all the public platforms of the country. Even members of the Government made it clear to the electors. I have here a few statements which will bear out my contention in that respect. I take from the Globe of Tuesday, October 23, 1917, the report of a meeting in Winnipeg, at which the Minister of Immigrartion (Mr. Calder): spoke:	I am glad to see him in his seat.
Here is the report:
It was on that understanding they had come in. He was not deserting Liberalism, nor the principle for which Liberalism stands. They were not absorbed nor submerged by the Conservative party. They had simply consented to Union for the purpose of this war, and reserved their views and opinions outside of the war. Union had been achieved only by each side agreeing to sink for the time being purely domestic problems.
The Minister of the Interior spoke at that meeting, and this is what he said, according to the report in the Globe:
~No man or woman is asked to reverse or abnegate convictions on fiscal or other subjects. The accepted basis of union was the only basis on which Union was possible under present condition, and our appeal is that the people of Canada unite on the same basis on which the members of the Government have united, and get behind this union and stay behind it until it achieves its end.
In the town of Sarnia a meeting was held which was addressed by the former Minister of Public Works, now chairman of the Board of Railway Commissioners. I take the report of that meeting from the Globe of October 25, 1917. This is what that gentleman, then a member of the Government, said at that time:
This Government is formed for a definite purpose and for a definite period. I am in it as a Liberal for that purpose and for that period, and for that purpose I intend to give the best that is in me.	.
I am in the Government to do what I can toward winning the war. I went in freely, and if there are things happen of which I cannot approve I can get out just as easy. This is not a Conservative Government; it is not a Liberal Government. (Mostly Conservative, interrupted a voice). This is a war-Government. Its purpose is to carry on the affairs of this country in a non-partisan way until the war is won. After demobilization the contract is concluded, and each man can take the course he thinks best. (You'll all be Tories then, exclaimed another.)


Jacques Bureau: He was wrong.


Ernest Lapointe: He was wrong as regards some of the gentlemen, but I am afraid he is right as regards a few.
Does someone say I would become a Tory? asked Mr. Carvell. Well, I don't believe it.

(Laughter and renewed cheers.) There is only one thing for a man to do in a crisis like the present, and that is to do what he thinks is right.
What about the electors? A meeting, largely attended by Liberals of the province of Ontario who supported conscription was held, I think, in the city of Hamilton. I take the following from the report of that meeting in the Globe of November 3, 1917:
Ex-Mayor J. G. Kerr of Chatham introduced the following resolution, seconded by Mr. F. L. Fowke of Oshawa:-
" That, whereas since the notice calling this convention was sent out, a Union Government has been formed, in which Liberals throughout the Dominion have joined, this convention, recording its belief that the formation of a Union Government for the duration of the war was highly desirable and in the best interests of Canada and believing that thereby the share of Canada in the conduct of the present world war will be best served, and the Government of the country most effectively and satisfactorily carried on during the period of the war expresses its approval of the action of the Liberal members of the present Union Government in entering same."
The Minister of Marine and Fisheries (Mr. Ballantyne), whom, I am sorry, is not in his seat, spoke at a meeting at Hamilton. These are his words as reported in the Globe of November 23, 1917:
I prefer to take my Liberalism and my patriotism at this juncture from men like Hon. W. S. Fielding in Nova Scotia, or' men like Mr. Fred. Pardee in Ontario, together with __ every Liberal Provincial Prime Minister save one in Canada, Hon. Mr. Ballantyne declared, rather than take it from Bourassa, Lavergne, Lemieux and company. (Prolonged cheers).
I should like to ask my hon. friend from whom he takes his Liberalism to-day? Ha does not seem to take it from my distinguished friend, the hon. member from Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding). He does ,riot seem to take it from my esteemed deskmate, the hon. member for Lambton West (Mr. Pardee). Surely he (does not take it from the nine provincial Premiers who are all supporters of the leader of the Opposition. From whom does he take it? Perhaps, from the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Meighen)', whose brand of Liberalism I do not trust very much. The President of the Privy Council (Mr. Rowell) spoke at Durham, and these are his words as reported in the Globe of November 28, 1917:
" in all the many nations at war," Hon. Mr. Rowell declared, after relating a few' overseas incidents, V it has been found impossible for any people to put their own energy into the war as long as they are divided by party lines, and the whole object of the Union Government is that the nation may stand , united m this crisis. After Prussian militarism has been defeated

we can go back to settle our own domestic affairs by party methods, if we so desire."
The President of the Privy Council was
not so emphatic as the others. He is an old fox, although I do not wish to refer to the fox which had lost its tail at the battle. But I have still better documentary evidence. I hold in my hand a prihted circular which was distributed in the trenches and in all the military camps in 1917, and a copy of which was given to' every soldier who registered a vote at that election. That circular, which was sent and distributed by the Government, reads in part as follows:



DOMINION OP CANADA, SOLDIERS' ELECTION.

[Stage Direction]
Comrades, this is our election, because the only issue is selective conscription. Without its immediate enforcement there can be no rest or relief for Canadians at the front. The Union Government is neither Grit nor Tory. It is composed of the following gentlemen:
v I do not wish to read the whole circular, but I desire only to impress upon. the House the fact that every soldier was told, before he registered his vote, that there was only one issue and that was selective conscription. Thousands of electors, the young manhood of this country, voted for this Government, because they were told that the only issue was selective conscription; that it was purely and exclusively a soldiers' election held for one purpose only, and the mandate they were asked to give was for that purpose alone and would expire when such purpose was achieved. Furthermore, those hundreds of thousands df electors were not given an opportunity to vote for a man of their own Choice to represent them in Parliament; they were not afforded the advantage of voting for pien whom they considered qualified to discuss questions of interest to them and to the country. [DOT] They voted simply for a Government without any regard to the candidates. In many instances they did not know the candidates. They were asked to vote for a Government which would be entrusted with a mandate to enforce a certain war policy and nothing else. This mandate Jias expired. This policy has disappeared from the political field. Is it fair to the men who voted in such a peculiar and unprecedented way, to use and abuse for other purposes the special mandate which they gave to a special set of men, many of whom pre no longer members of the collective body for which the soldiers' votes were registered.
Sir, there are issues at hand that will cause a clear cleavage between progress
and reaction, between Toryism and reform. The very fact that the resources of Canada as a result of our war effort have been strained as they have been, and that we have a huge national debt, compels us to face grave and great problems and the two traditionally opposite sides cannot but face each other when the settlement is effected, and one or the other must give way. It is impossible for gentlemen of different ideas to agree on these great problems. They cannot sit together and be true to their principles. No gentlemen who has not altogether renounced his liberalism can remain in this Government to-day or support it. The hon. member for Parkdale (Mr. Mowat) has stated that the real Liberals are on that side of the House, and he said he was saving Liberalism by remaining therms. Sir, when he makes those professions publicly before the country, while continuing to support the present Government, he is saving Liberalism in the same manner and to the same extent and degree as another gentleman, who two thousand years ago contributed to the salvation and redemption of the world by publicly kissing his Master to betray Him to the ' Roman soldiers. I am willing to admit that in the multitude of arbitrary and reactionary measures that have been passed by this Government some Liberal policies may have been adopted on minor points. It was Theodore Roosevelt who once said of an American politician, he was so wicked he could embrace a good principle if it ^helped him. On all vital issues, on all issues that had to be definite and would be controversial, we have witnessed a policy of indecision on the part of this Government. We are told that th$ country is in a state of unrest and that this is no time for change or the adoption of any definite policy. The argument was made by the hon. member for Leeds (Sir Thomas White) yesterday. Yet in 1911 when the Liberal Government sought to enact a treaty of reciprocity for the purpose of affording relief to the great farming community of this country, and went down to defeat on that issue, we were met by the cry: Let well enough alone; the country is too prosperous and peaceful for a change. My hon. friend from Leeds was a leader in that campaign, and now in 1920, when the country is convulsed from one end to the other, the very same gentleman says: Would you alter our policy in such agitated times as these? Such is the dilemma of a vicious Tory government and selfish interests-if the people are turbulent, they are un-
[Stage Direction]
fit for reform, and if they are quiet they do not want reform. After every meeting of supporters of the Government at which policies were to be enunciated, it is officially reported that they have unanimously come to the decision that no decision should be taken. Hon. gentlemen opposite are simply asking for time. The hon. member for West Peterborough (Mr. Burnham) wrote in the Evening Journal yesterday that he was going to vote against the amendment of the hon. leader of the Opposition just for the purpose of gaining time, for he has no confidence in the Government. Ninety per cent of the political energies of the members of the Government are wasted on expedients to patch or piece out the political machine as often, as it breaks down.
The right hon. the Prime Minister (Sir Robert Borden) is sick and absent, and we all regret it. I think it was unfortunate and most unfair to charge the hon. leader of the Opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King) with discourtesy in alluding in his amendment to the illness of the right hon. the Prime Minister. The hon. leader of the Opposition was the first man to express the sympathy of the House with the right hon. gentleman in his illness. On the very opening day of this session, speaking right after the right hon. the Acting Prime Minister (Sir George Foster), who never said a word about the right hon. the Prime Minister in his speech, the hon. leader of the Opposition spoke as follows:
Sir, may I join my right hon. friend in giving expression to other sentiments which we experience in common on this historic occasion? It is not more a source of regret to supporters of the Government than it is to hon. members of the Opposition that the -right hon. the Prime Minister (Sir Robert Borden) is prevented, because of the impaired condition of his health, from being present at and participating in these opening ceremonies, certain, as they are, to live in the memories of all who are privileged to witness them. It is gratifying to us, as it will be to the people of Canada, to know that the change of scene and thought, and most of all, the freedom for a time, from vast responsibility, which the Prime Minister is at present enjoying, have not been without their beneficient effects; and that restoration of health, which we all hope may be speedy and complete, appears now to await him. Still, we regret his absence, and we miss his presence.
We all regret the unfortunate illness of the Prime Minister, but we shall not allow hon. gentlemen opposite, who for years have prevented the free discussion of their misdeeds and extravagant administration by sheltering themselves behind the glory and the sacrifice of our brave Canadian soldiers, to screen themselves to-day behind the weakness of a sick man. The Govern-
[Mr. E. Lapointe.!
ment has no right to exploit the illness of the Prime Minister, and they are most unfair to him when they try to do so. We all hope that his health will
10 p.m. speedily be restored, but my duty to this country compels me to state that I object emphatically that Canadian policies-the solution of reconstruction and other national problems-should also travel around the world with the Prime Minister on Viscount Jellicoe's ship, or rest with him in Florida. Canada cannot afford to waste another year, and still less two whole years.
The hon. Minister of the Interior (Mr. Meighen) asked the House the other night what was wrong with the Government and with the body politic. So far as he could see, everything was all right. The hon. gentleman has a short memory. Only a few weeks ago he went to the city of Kingston and virtually pleaded for a new alignment in the political field. Why is he advocating a new union if everything is all right today? I have in my hand the Montreal Gazette containing a report of a speech of the Minister of the Interior and it reads as follows in part:
I am asked what it is proposed to do. The air is filled with clashing demands, conflicting criticisms and contradictory appeals. One extremist calls for one thing, another extremist for another thing. The extreme labour man wants labour domination; he wants the one big union and all that it involves. The extreme protectionist wants a high tariff. The extreme free trader wants no tariff at all. The extreme Socialist wants the nationalization of everything. The extreme individualist thinks we have nationalized far too much already. The extreme farmer partisan wants an agricultural dynasty. He believes he will make this country a land of Canaan by a system of free imports, by buying more goods from others.
What I say is, let all moderate men get together. There are sane and moderate labour men, thousands of them, the vast majority. Back of this restlessness and discord we have a sane business community. We have manufacturers of moderate views. We have hundreds of thousands of steady and thoughtful agriculturists, thoughtful citizens who read from experience as well as from books, men of patriotic principles, just as big a proportion of such men as in any class in the nation. Let these men and these women get together. Let them not be stampeded. The hope of this country is to be found in such a union, and such a union is right now taking place. It will draw strength from every group. It will gain in vigour from attacks. Its numbers will multiply as the danger becomes clearer. It will hold the ship steady, and it will bring us through.
Let me ask my hon. friend what is wrong with him and his friends? Is it not enough to make angels weep to hear the Minister of the Interior classifying himself amongst the moderates of this country? He was the

father, and the godfather, of the most arbitrary and despotic legislation and Orders in Council which have been executed and enforced by this Government. He is very clever and has many high qualities, but he is the last man in the world I would trust to adopt a moderate course in the political field. Again I ask, if everything is right in the Unionist family, why form a new union, why this appeal for a new alignment? If everything is right and if nothing is wrong, why should a close friend of the Prime Minister and a strong supporter of the Unionist party, Senator McLennan, launch a new political party under the name of the National party? Why should all these gentlemen try to dress or redress, the Unionist child with more fashionable clothes?
But, Sir, the Unionist house is divided against itself. We on this side of the House are witnessing with equanimity and calmness the disintegration and decay of that unnatural organization. One part wants to remain Unionist; another wants to be purely and simply Conservative or Tory; the Minister of the Interior wants a new Union; Senator McLennan wants a National Party; and my hon. friend from Red Deer (Mr. Clark) who, apart from being a farmer, is a medical man, the other day attended at th birth of a new party under the name of the National Progressive Party. Yesterday the hon. member for Leeds (Sir Thomas White) not only attended as a medical man but was the generator and creator of a new party under the name of the National Liberal Conservative party. I shall not be surprised at all if before the end of this debate some practical joker on the other side stands up and advocates the formation of the National Liberal-Conservative, Progressive, Reform Farmers' party - they would all, except the Farmers, come from the same mother, to wit: the Tory party.
Facing all these groups and factions, fighting one another in a hopeless struggle, the Liberal party stands united, vigorous, reorganized, ready and prepared for political action. The good old cause, as our late lamented leader called it so often-the good old cause, vanquished or triumphant, insulted or victorious-is still the good old cause with us. . Liberalism is the application of the eternal principles of justice to all classes, elements, interests and trades. Liberalism means evolution, along reasonable and progressive lines. But, as Burke said, innovations are not necessarily reforms. The Liberal party holds the middle course between dangerous, violent changes that would bring disaster to our institutions and
obstinate resistance to progress and the spirit of the time. The Liberal party stands between capital and labour, between the weak and the strong, between the individual . and the corporation, between the big interests, so dear to the heart of the hon. member for Leeds, and the plain citizen like you and me, Mr. Speaker. It stands between conflicting interests and classes, it. stands between that class which is the Canadian Manufacturers Association and that other class which is the Canadian Council of Agriculture, having as its only aim and ambition to do only what is fair and just to all and to each.
All the organized forces of selfishness are attacking it and questioning its motives and its aims. The extremists dislike it extremely, and, Sir, when I hear on one hand, the hon. member for Brantford (Mr. Coch-shutt) denounce us as dangerous free traders, and on the other hand, the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Clark), Mr. Mussel-man of Saskatchewan, or Mr. Wood, of Alberta claim that we are only protectionists in disguise, I take it as conclusive evidence that we are discharging the true and normal functions of Liberalism holding the sane and safe middle course.
When I read in the Ottawa Journal that I am, in common with friends on this side of the House coming from the province of Quebec, a reactionary and an obscurantist, as was stated in an editorial last week, and when almost at the same time I am branded in that other Unionist Tory paper, L'Even-ment of Quebec, as being a wild radical, just as bad as my hon. friend the leader of the Opposition and almost as dangerous as my hon. friend the member for Marquette (Mr. Crerar), which is still worse, I take it as an indication that I am but a plain and unadulterated Liberal, and I do not mind the abuse.
I have just mentioned the name of my hon. friend from Brantford. The hon. gentleman in the course of his speech the other night expressed regret that I was then absent from the House, because he was anxious to know whether my removal from Kamouraska to the constituency of Quebec East has had any effect on my views with regard to the fiscal policy. I understand the anxiety of my hon. friend from Brantford; I understand why he is so nervous at the present time. He has had many events in his province lately that he does not like, things he considers as plagues- he has had a Farmers' Government, smallpox, and prohibition, and now he is threatened by a reduction in the price of
[Stage Direction]
ploughs. He ventured the assertion that my views must be modified as a result of a change in the constituency which I represent in the House. Mr. Speaker, I challenge my hon. friend to quote one word of mine, uttered at any time, in support of an absolute free trade policy in this country. For the purpose of revenue I have always stated, and I state to-night, that we must have a tariff, and we must have it much more to-day because of the great war debt that we have to pay. But let me tell my hon. friend that he has missed his guess. I was in favour of a lower tariff when I represented Kamouraska; and I am in favour of a lower tariff when I am representing Quebec East. I was in favour of a policy that would reduce the price of ploughs to the farmers when I was in Kamouraska, and I am in favour of that policy to-day when I represent Quebec East. I was in favour of the policy expounded by my right hon. leader who is now dead, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, three weeks before his death, when he spoke before the Eastern Ontario Liberal Association. That speech on the fiscal question stands as his political will. By that policy enunciated by my late leader, and by the policy which was adopted at the Liberal Convention last summer, I stood in Kamouraska and I stand in Quebec East. I am even ready to go and discuss that policy in Brantford if my hon. friend will give me the opportunity. He may rest assured that I do not, and never will, modify my principles and opinions , according to conditions of time or place.
Now, Sir, I wish to say a word on the question of the new election law which is going to be introduced and enaeted._ The leader of the House does not like the references that are made to the War-time Elections Act. It is a worn-out subject, he says, that has been fought and discussed over and over again and should be left aside altogether. Let me tell him that the discussion of this famous piece of legislation will be of permanent interest as long as the Parliament which was elected by virtue of such Act remains in office. There is an old proverb that says, " When the spring is muddy the stream is muddy, too," and the stream in this case will flow on as long as the present Parliament lasts. All I wish to say is to express the hope that the new Bill will not reproduce and embody any of the bad features of that legislation. All British subjects by birth or naturaliza-tiono are entitled to be represented in this Parliament and to exercise all the privileges of citizenship. If you want our naturalized citizens to feel for Canada more than half

patriotism you must make Canada more than half a country for them. The monstrous doctrine of collective responsibility which makes men hate and revenge themselves not only on the evildoer or the guilty but on all those of the same name, race, or colour, was a pernicious product of the war mentality, and must be discarded and destroyed if we are to have sanity, peace and progress in this country. The question to my mind is not only one of justice; it is a question of safety. It is neither wise nor prudent to deprive any class of our population of their right to the ballot. It is cheaper, after all, to lift men up than to hold them down, and the ballot in their hands is far less dangerous to society than a sense of wrong in their heads. I hope we shall have a fair and honest franchise, followed by a fair and honest election.	[DOT]
With regard to the coming elections some hon. gentleman opposite used as a justification for voting against the amendment of my leader the argument that there should be a re-distribution before the elections take place for the purpose of giving a larger representation to the farming community of Western Canada. Those gentlemen are not serious. Firstly, such a re-distribution cannot be made before two or three years. And they do not know-have they not read in the Ministerial press, that it is the intention to do away with the custom of having a different unit of representation for the urban and rural constituencies, so that by increasing considerably the number of representatives in the cities it will be possible for them to drown the voice of the farmers? Have they still some faith in the pledges of this Government? Moreover, Sir, the estimated figures quoted by some gentleman as to the probable increase in the population of the various provinces are wholly misleading as far as Quebec is concerned, if the statistics of the Provincial Government are correct, as I have no doubt they are. The increase in the population of the province of Quebec is much larger than the figures quoted in this debate indicate, and Quebec being the pivot of the representation our fiiends from the West would not get the increase of representation which they seem to expect. You see, we do not increase our population in Quebec by artificial means such as Government regulations or immigration policies. Our process of inciease is the old law of multiplication as prescribed by the Creator. Quebec does not import her population, she makes it, and that may be the

reason why our population is sane and safe.	:	[DOT]
There is another subject I desire to refer to and which should be an additional argument in favour of the amendment before the House. A great Imperial Conference is going to take place this year for the purpose of deliberating upon and considering the constitutional relations of the Empire and the various Dominions. I submit that it is necessary that only a Government with a popular mandate,- that only a Parliament representative of the majority of the Canadian people, should be entrusted with the duty and task of representing Canada and speaking for its people at this very important gathering. This weak, impotent, leaderless Government has no right to assume to speak with the great voice of Canada at that Conference, has no right to engage our future or pledge our destinies to any extent.
Last year when speaking on this subject I strongly urged that no question affecting Canada's future should be discussed at any Conference without having been first submitted to the Parliament of Canada, and that our delegates should go to that Conference with a clear mandate and with no other rights or missions than those agreed upon and conferred by this Parliament. I am glad Indeed that the opinion I then expressed has received the support of hon. gentlemen who have spoken in the course of this debate. During the last few years Parliament has been treated in this lespect with scant courtesy. These great problems must be considered from a purely Canadian point of view. We are prepared and willing to do our part amongst the nations of the world, but our main policy is and will remain the policy of Canada first; we are and shall remain one hundred per cent Canadians, and will not allow anybody to change our status for us without our participation.
My last words, Sir, will be an appeal to all the members of this House to listen to the voice of the country which is heard from the Atlantic to the Pacific asking them to support the amendment of the leader of the Opposition. The Government has always represented itself as being a war Government-as being purely and simply a war machine. This Parliament was elected as, and has been always stated to be, a war Parliament. The war is over. The Government have demobilized everybody else; I ask them to-day to demobilize themselves.
Hon. MARTIN BURRELL (Minister of Customs):: Mr. Speaker, it was not my intention to take part in this debate until the conclusion of the speech of my hon. friend the leader of the Opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King), when he put his amendment and challenged the whole administration of the Government of which I have been a member since its inception in 1917.
I wish to express, in common with other speakers who have preceded me, the gratification that we all feel on coming into this beautiful building. I do not know that any higher compliment could be paid to the building or to its designers than to say that judging from the feelings of all the members and the great satisfaction they have expressed on getting into these new quarters, we all feel that we can at least enter 'a building that shows beauty and strength somewhat in comparison to the strength and beauty of the parliamentary institutions which are carried on on this north half of the American continent.
I wish also to say a word in passing in reference to the speeches of my hon. friends, the member for London (Mr. Cronyn) and the member for Pictou (Mr. McGregor), the mover and seconder of the Address. I haye been a member of this House for twelve years, and have necessarily therefore heard the speeches of a great many movers and [DOT]seconders of the Address, but I cannot recall in the whole of that time any speeches which have been permeated with a finer spirit. The address of my hon. friend from London was not only characterized by great breadth, but also by a full recognition of the problems that are facing this country to-day, and contained yaluable suggestions towards their solution, and both as to matter and manner was an admirable speech from beginning to end. I can only say that my -lion, friend "from London is a type of representative that we sorely need to have and to keep in our public life. I would not say any less than that of my hon. friend from Pictou. He gave a sane and thoughtful presentation of the problems pf war and of the problems that have come to us with the conclusion of peace, and his solution for those problems are worthy of consideration. I was particularly interested in, and I think it would be well for hon. members to read and re-read, what he had to say about the soldier questions which now confront us.
Sir, there was one thing that struck me as particularly pleasant - about those speeches, and that was their absolute freedom from political rancour; a generous spirit breathed through them. I also would like to say that it is a pleasure for this House to notice that the same generous * spirit characterized the speeches of the



leaders of that small group at the further end of the Chamber known as the crossbenchers. I heard with great pleasure my old friend from Red Deer (Mr. Clark) give that fine eulogy on the Prime Minister (Sir Robert Borden). It was not less appreciated by members on this side of the House and indeed by many on the other side, when my hon. friend from Marquette (Mr. Crerar) paid a similar tribute to one who is literally a " casualty of the war." I would like to add that it gave us all on this side gratification to hear my hon. friend from Red Deer pay that fine tribute of his to a political opponent in the old days, the right hon. the leader of the House at this present moment (Sir George Foster). He did it in a manner worthy of the best traditions of this House.	i	i
I wish, Mr. Speaker, that I could speak in the same appreciative tone of the attitude adopted by my hon. friend the leader of the Opposition. I noticed that when he commenced his speech he said:
It would be strange, indeed, if, under the spell of the noble and dignified proportions of this Chamber, we were not all impressed with the spirit of the Canadian people in rising out of the difficulties of the past.
I must confess that when he proceeded with his speech I thought he was freeing himself from the spell of the building with remarkable success, and the further he proceeded the more completely he freed himself, until when he came to his amendment he was absolutely free from any such spell.
And if I can say this of the speech of my hon. friend the leader of the Opposition, I can surely say it with greater force of that of the member for Russell (Mr. Murphy), who made one of the most extraordinary speeches that I have ever heard since ^ became a member of this House. I think the best thing to do with that speech would be to absolutely forget it. But I would call atten-' tion for a moment to his closing statement: That the Liberal party was established for the promotion of neighbourly relations, mutual respect and good-will. If that is so, I never heard a speech so singularly calculated to thwart the purposes for which the Liberal party was established.
The hon. minister (Mr. Rowell) who was the subject of that attack needs no defence from me; he made a pretty good defence for himself, I think. As one of his colleagues, I have only to say that he has the fullest esteem and confidence of his colleagues as a valued member of the Government. I would commend to my hon. friend from Russell, as to other hon. members who

are apt to indulge in rancourous debate and acrimonious personalities, the words- which I cordially endorse-with which my hon. friend from Marquette closed his speech the other day. He 6aid:
If we as Canadian citizens seek only what is good, noble, honest and true, and look only for what is best in one another, I have no fear for our future prosperity and welfare, nor need, I think, any of us.
Now, Sir, my hon. friend the leader of the Opposition is a young man and a Canadian, he has worked at industrial problems not only in this -country but in another country, and I think it unfortunate that the style of his speech should have been what it was. He seemed to have a strange misapprehension of the spirit of the last three or four years as shown not only in the world generally but in this country particularly. He seems to have forgotten that men are no longer cleaving in the selfish way they did years ago to the old party system and shouting the same old acrimonious party battle-cries. I think if he had realized that more he would have changed the tone of his address and have discarded some of the methods which characterized the unrestrained party methods of years ago. When he referred to the members of this Government as having only the desire to hang on to office, he surely must have known that he was not speaking the truth. He must have known something of the strain that Ministers have undergone during the frightful struggle of the last few years. He certainly must have known that so far as material rewards go we have had no reason to hang on to office. So that it is a matter of regret that a gentleman starting out as leader of a once' historic and still, in a sense, big party, should descend to this line of argument,-speaking of his opponents as men only capable of hanging on to office, of violating popular rights, and of banishing freedom. These are old cries that are very much out of place in these days.
My hon. friend lamented the loss of faith in our institutions 'and in ourselves that exists in 'Canada and generally throughout the world. I can only say that in his speech he himself, as the leader of a great party, adopted a very poor method of restoring it. I am not so pessimistic as my hon. friend. It is true that the millennial is not here; that the results of the war have not been as happy as they might have been in the establishment not only of a speedy peace but of something approaching a finer spirit of brotherhood all over the world. Nevertheless, while there may not be on
the part of the people the same ready assent to formulas and conventions that there was, and while there may be an impression that people are getting loose in their moorings, I as a Canadian do not believe for a moment that the millions who have gone through this awful struggle, who have displayed unselfishness and courage and self-discipline during these years of war, have faced the realities of life for nothing, nor will they fail as a great and steadying influence in our future progress.
My hon. friend did himself scant justice when he complained of members of this Government being continually away and suggested that we in Canada should primarily attend to our own affairs. He complained that a thing like the Grand Trunk agreement had not been brought down, too much .attention being given in the meantime to external matters. Well, he only had to wait a day or two before he got the Grand Trunk agreement. And surely my hon. friend of all gentlemen in this House should be the last to complain on this score. It is true that we have to attend to Canadian affairs first, but can we say that Canadian affairs are not in a very real sense hound up with world affairs at this time? My hon. friend should not 'be a little Canadian. He has been a member of different commissions. He was a member, I think, of a commission to inquire into immigration from India and the vexed problems connected with that subject. He was a member also of a commission to deal with troubles in Japan. He has spent some time in the United States studying great labour and industrial problems. He, therefore, of all men should be the last to complain. Does he say at a time when the after-problems of the war and the steps to he taken following the conclusion of peace had to be decided, Canadian Ministers were not in t.heir proper place when they were amongst those by whom the solution of these things had to be brought about? (1 think that my hon. friend has not taken very good ground on that point. If I could stretch my imagination sufficiently to imagine him as Prime Minister of this . country,-and it would be a difficult thing to do-I would think that in that capacity he would take a somewhat broader view. As one illustration of the prestige which our country has attained among the nations . of the world, I may point out that when the one representative. for the British Empire was to be appointed on the Saar Valley Commission, a body to govern the Saar Valley for a period of fifteen years, the British Government asked that Canada 184
name that representative. That suggestion has been met and a Western man has been selected, a high type of Canadian, who has since been made Chairman of the whole Commission.
My hon. friend says that we are suffering at this time from the inability of the Government to meet the needs of the country. I do not know to what extent my hon. friend has followed the problems of the last few years or the manner in which the Government has dealt with them. As my hon. friend has no responsibility so far as governmental office is concerned, he feels that he is free to criticize. But he has been a member of a government; he is now leader of an Opposition. He will appreciate that saying of M. Diderot: "II est si difficile de produire meme une chose mediocre; il est si facile de sentir la mediocrite." This Government has produced constructive legislation which is not by any means of a mediocre character. It has had to deal with immense problems and has settled them satisfactorily. At a meeting in Ottawa the other day my hon. friend welcomed the advent of women into the political life of this country, but he did not think of giving credit to this Government for introducing that great reform, the enfranchisement of women. There are other things that he might have had in mind so far as the accomplishments of the Government are concerned, but these have been so ably dealt with by the member for Pictou (Mr. McGregor.), the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir George Foster) and others that I shall not do more than touch very briefly upon them.
I should like to refer to one thing which at least many of the people are giving the Government due credit for, but which my hon. friend seems to pay little attention to namely, the exceptionally successful work initiated and carried on by the Minister of the Interior (Hon. Mr. Meighen) in connection with the settlement of soldiers upon the land. If that is not appreciated by my hon. friend, at least it is appreciated in other countries. Although the Act has been in force only one year, more than 15,000 men have been settled upon the land under its provisions; loans amounting to $57,000,000 have been approved and 35,000 returned men have received qualification certificates. Without dilating upon the subject, I may say that in what has been done in this respect we are 100 per cent in advance of Great Britain, the United States, or, in fact, any other of the countries that were engaged in the war.

My hon. friend has said a great deal about unrest. So far as I aril able to judges, there is less unrest in Canada than there is in any other part of the world. The problems that have been so acutely before the people of all countries since the war have been just as acute here, and they have been met. I say without fear of contradiction that in the volume of our trade; in the small extent to which we have been troubled by labodr difficulties; in the successful solution of such problems as the railway question and other important matters, no country in the world has greater cause for Vratitude' than the Canada in which we live.
It is interesting and not a little amusing to watch my hon. friend's attitude with regard to the Farmers' party. My hon. fiiend has shown some alarm with regain to-the formation of this Farmers' party. He says that the Liberals are not opposed to the farmers. He argued at a recent meeting that in so far as the farmers had any virtue, any qualifications such as were enumerated by the member for Quebec East (Mr. Lapointe) just now, they were in reality Liberals. Evidently he looked forward hopefully to the time when he could 'amalgamate the Farmers' party with his own. Well, I think the member for Red Deer (Mr. M. Clark) would say that a man once bitten is twice shy. He was for many years a member of the Liberal party. During all that time he preached pretty strongly the economic doctrines which he believes in-and he thought that within the folds of the party which my hon. friend (Hon. Mr. Mackenzie King) leads to-day, he was a kind of voice in the wilderness.
I do not think it is likely that he will join it in the very near future, but it is somewhat amusing to this House to see the way in which the leader of the Opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King) has cornered the group of cross-benchers in this particular amendment. My hon. friend, at a Liberal gathering in the city recently, challenged the Farmers' party on this motion, and on what they will do, he said, on "the fundamental question as to the attitude they will take towards the Government". He is not concerned about great questions of policy or great economic questions, but hq is deeply concerned as to what attitude they will take in regard. to the desire to put out of power the Government which is now in office. I am not surprised that the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. M. Clark) laboured somewhat in his reasons for supporting the amendment, and I would 
think his friends on the cross-benches would have been entitled to vote with the members on this side against the amendment of the leader of the Opposition. The hon. member for Red Deer had a fundamental difference with the leader of the Opposition and his party in 1917, and I can understand the reluctance with which he would join with him in any kind of a vote, much more in a vote of this sort. We on this side, much as we may differ with the hon. member for Red Deer, are never likely to forget the loyal and consistent support t that he gave to the war when he was a whole-hearted member on this side. A certain famous divine, Archbishop Magee, used to say that there were three kinds of .speakers in the world-the men you can listen to, the men you cannot listen to and the men you cannot help listening to, I would put my hon. friend in the last class, namely, those you cannot help listening to.
I should be sorry, as I think many of us here would be, to lose my hon. friend from this House. If he votes for this amendment and if the amendment were to carry and an election follow, w'e might lose him. The hon. member for Red Deer has been somewhat franker than some of his friends who are voting for this amendment. My hon. friend in his speech said:
So far as a desire for an election is concerned,	any hon. member who is pining
for an election is fonder of adventure than I am	The doctrine of self-preservation is
the first law of nature.
If I can infer anything at all from that, I can infer that my hon. friend does not want this amendment to carry, and he has a pretty shrewd idea that it will not carry. He justifies his attitude and his support of the amendment, as does the hon. member for Marquette (Air. Crerar), on grounds of public policy, namely, that the Union Government had only a mandate for the war, also that there are now before the country issues which require an appeal to the country for a fresh Government. It is not necessary for me to point out to this House, or to members who have sat in it for a long time, that this is not a mere formal vote of want of confidence, but that, as a matter of fact, it is an arraignment of the present administration and couched in language so partisan and unfortunate that* I do not wonder that the group of crossbenchers, including the hon. member for Red Deer, are extraordinarily reluctant to swallow the dose prepared for them by the leader of the Opposition.
For a short time, and hurriedly, I should like to refer to the speeches made by- the

lion, member for Marquette and the hon. member for Red Deer. The hon. member for Red Deer referred to his fellow-member as his leader. I do not know whether he is his leader or his pupil, but, I should rather be inclined to think,, the latter. At all events, they preach the same doctrine, and they justify the establishment of a third party on the ground of -their common desire for the abolition of tariffs which they saw no hope of abolishing through the instrumentality of either of the old parties. Before touching on the economic views advanced by my hon. friends of the crossbenches, I should like for a few moments to turn to what has been said as to the new farmers' political organization being a class movement and as such not in the interest of the State as a whole. This morning's paper had rather a significant item to the effect that there were seven hundred canvassers going out from the United Farmers of Manitoba to canvass the whole of the farmers of Manitoba for funds with which to carry on a campaign for capturing the citadel at Ottawa. Well, that is fairly good evidence, I think, that this is a class movement. Certainly, the dominating spirits of this movement in the West are men who have appealed to the class.to which they belonged, initially to those who are purely grain growers, and embracing perhaps a large number of those who are farmers and practically at that time all in the West, and they have used from time to time some sound arguments, some very specious arguments, and some, I think, We must admit, rather unfair and very misleading arguments in their appeal to their constituencies and in trying to point out the alleged injustices under which the farmers were suffering and the remedies which were to be applied. Political action, political methods, party organizations have been preached and practised. In Ontario, if the report is correct, methods of organization have gone so far that they have actually countenanced by prearrangement resignations in the party of those who are nominated if they should attempt to break away from the party, and the organization is to be used for the distinct purpose of aiming at control of federal affairs. In British Columbia a similar energy has been shown in the attempt to organize the United Farmers of British Columbia. This attempt has not met with quite so wide a response, and perhaps, for obvious reasons, because conditions in British Columbia in respect to matters which I have touched on, are not those of the Prairie Provinces. The president, however, of the United Farmers of
Alberta, at a convention held the other day at Victoria, B.C., made this statement, that when the United Farmers of British Columbia went to the polls as one man, they would become the economic force that nature destined them to be. It is quite evident that although differences of opinion exist, there is not the ground for the same response that was given in the Prairie Provinces. The hon. member for Red Deer the other day in his speech made this remark:
:-The farmer of all men

and particularly the Western farmers-are certainly free from any charge of selfishness in so far as their policy goes, because the first thing they ask Parliament and the Government to do is to take off all duties on the things they produce, in order that the general consumers of Canada may have the benefit of wholesome and cheap food. That is not class selfishness surely.
I am afraid I cannot follow my hon. friend in his argument. He is perfectly aware of the fact-and I am not criticising the ground upon which my hon. friends base their action

that the main product of the Western farmer is wheat which has to find its market in the world market unprotected, and it is perfectly natural for him to feel that, if his product has to meet without protection its price in the world market, everything else in the way of tax should be removed from the things he buys. You can call that self-interest or you can call it Selfishness; but what it seems to me our friends in the prairies fail to realize is this, that the abolition of tariffs goes a good deal further than this. In the West as elsewhere there are selfish and sectional protectionists; there are selfish and sectional free traders, and if men of extreme views of this kind insist on pressing their views, and could press them to a point where they would obtain power to put them into effect, they would simply jeopardize the whole state structure. As the ex-Minister of Finance (Sir Thomas White) pointed out in his able speech yesterday, any kind of economical policy that has to be carried into effect in this country must be absolutely national in its character, and not sectional.
What are the doctrines and political ideals which my hon. friends from Marquette (Mr. Crerar) and Red Deer (Mr. Clark) and the rest of' the cross-benchers are advocating? I shall quote the exact words of my hon. friend from Marquette so as not to be misunderstood. He said:
It will take a long time indeed to convince the farmers of Western Canada that there is any virtue in the principle of protection, especially in a customs tariff.
Further on he said this:

of the great national industries, namely, that of agriculture, in the old country. The figures that I have quoted will show not only that a tariff for revenue is in operation but that the protective principle also is in operation. Let me illustrate it in other directions. I have not time to go into the details of what has T)een done in connection with wheat, bread and flour during the past few years in England. My hon. friend of course knows that by fixing a guaranteed price of wheat for years, which is still in operation,-and a greater price is being clamoured for now with, I think, some success-and by fixing the maximum price ,of the four pound loaf at 19 cents, the British Government not only gives a protection to the farmers but gives practically a gratuity to the consumers to the extent of millions upon millions of dollars which is taken from the general taxpayers of the country. I am not criticizing their 'action or questioning the wisdom of adopting protective measures of this kind. I would venture to say that with the increasing pressure of the farming community in England ,still higher protection will be adopted. I plight point out to my hon. friend and his friends also that in their handling of the dairy products of England there has been in operation the protective principle, for which I am not criticizing them. They have had such a control of the imports from this country and such a control of the production of their own dairy industries in Great Britain that it has given, what I think they are justified in giving, such a measure of protection to the dairy industries in that country that they will not be ,wiped out and jeopardized as the whole agricultural industry was jeopardized when the crisis arose and which they had to face during the past four years in the old country. I need not point to another direction in which they have adopted the protective principle in England. I refer to the question of. livestock. Tinder the very thin disguise of a health measure one of the strongest forms of protection to the cattle industry of Great Britain has been maintained by an absolutely unjustifiable embargo against the cattle of the United States and especially of Canada where not the wildest straining of the facts could elicit anything but the cleanest bill of 'health in regard to our cattle, and in regard to which they have hardly attempted to veneer their action by denominating it as a health measure. Admittedly it is intended to be a protection to their own-agricultural interests. I do not think that in view of the facts I have stated, Eng-
land's march towards abolishing all tariffs or the element of protection of its own industries has been so rapid or complete as the member for Red Deer would have us believe.
My hon. friend referred to the victory achieved by the Right Hon. Mr. Asquith recently as a triumph of the economic principles for which he stood. I think the facts, if we knew them, would rather be that another man running in the constituency of Paisley holding the same economic principles that Mr. Asquith holds but not with the powerful personality and great traditions that pertain to Mr. Asquith's name, would have met a very different fate. I am glad, as every man is glad, that any English constituency would return a statesman who has served his country so long and so ably as Mr. Asquith has done.
I was rather surprised and a little interested when my hon. friend from Red Deer in his speech from Friday last in giving an illustration as to the evils of protection asked us to follow the example of the men in the trenches. I will quote his exact words. He said:
Let me make an appeal to these gentlemen to use all their endeavours to grow into the same stalwart type of Canadians that stood in the trenches and asked for no protection and the farmers of the West who ask for no protection.
I think that of the men whom he mentions for the purpose of illustration he could not have made a more unhappy choice than when he referred to the man in the trenches as the man who was not asking for protection. I think he would find that the man in the trenches when he was getting' the benefit of some high explosives from the German positions would send up a flare for the artillery in his rear to give him protection. Or if there was the likelihood of an aggressive movement from the German front he would want to have the protection of all the barbed wire he could get, and rightly so. What did the adoption of the helmets used in the last years of the war mean but protection? What was the object of every form of manoeuvre and device that could put the forces of the Allies in better condition than the German forces but protection, and protection of the sanest and soundest character. I do not think a more unhappy illustration could possibly have been drawn than the illustration my hon. friend advanced in that respect.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I do not intend to keep the House much longer for I know the hour is late and we are shortly to vote on

the amendment before us. The farmers' party, as represented by the group at the other end of this Chamber, are apparently going to support the amendment. I can only regret it. They are certainly not going to support that amendment for the same reasons that the leader of the Opposition and his friends are going to support it, because they have not manifested any particular hostility toward the policies that were put into effect by this Government, or the principles for which this Government stands, apart from this particular tariff question. In fact I think my hon. friend from Marquette and my hon. friend whom we highly esteem from Red Deer, and their associates were with us on this side of the. House when great problems were undertaken, and I think successfully undertaken. They, I think, will not only have sympathy with the difficulties which we encountered and the way in which they were surmounted, but will admit that, apart from this particular measure of tariff reform, which they think we are not hastening to as quickly as they anticipate, they have no very strong cause for voting for this particular amendment especially in the way in which it has been framed. It is quite a different matter with my hon. friends opposite-certainly in the case of the leader of the Opposition because when addressing Liberal friends in this city the other night he put the matter this way:	"If we do not win on Parliament Hill in this particular amendment by carrying it, we will carry it from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and we expect the people of the country to rise up with us and demand that this Government get out of office." That is all he is aiming at. It does not matter what the Government has done or what it stands for-and he seems to comprehend very little of what it has * done-his chief anxiety is to get this Government out of office so that he and his friends may take its place. Well, as citing a fairly independent and pretty sane opinion from the West on this matter I might direct my hon. friend's attention, and especially the attention of the hon. gentleman who last spoke (Mr. Lapointe), for whom we have a warm regard, let me quote from a paper which has a very considerable influence in the West namely the Manitoba Free Press. In its issue of March 3 last, that newspaper says:
Members of the present Dominion Parliament were elected for a five year term, and they are under no moral obligation to vote for Mr. King's amendment providing for an early election. If a majbrity of them want an election they will, of course, support Mr. King's
resolution, and no one will question their right to make such a decision. On the other hand, if their decision is adverse, they are equally within their rights in deciding, so far as the decision rests with them, they will continue to represent their constituents for the period for which they were originally elected.
Should the House of Commons reject Mr. King's amendment, as it no doubt will, it does not follow that there will be no general election until the present Parliament completes its term. The right of the Administration to consult the electorate in its discretion is inherent in our constitution, and an appeal to the people by the Government during the present year is regarded by all political observers as well within possibilities.
A House of Commons elected during the present year, while it may be more representative than the existing Chamber, would fall far short of being truly representative of Canadian opinion at the present time. Election on the basis of the present constituencies would leave the West under represented to at least the extent of twenty members. The West has never had its full representation in the Cana-, dian Parliament. By accident or design it has always happened that a general election is held on tlie eve of redistribution, the effect of which has been to keep the western representation always far below its proper strength. Further, the cities are, under the present scheme of representation under-represented to a degree that is not longer defensible,'and it is quite clear that there must be extensive adjustments in this respect, which ought to be accompanied by the adoption of proportional representation for at least the urban areas.
It is a quite arguable proposition that upon the whole the interests of Canada will be best served by putting up with conditions as they are for another two years until it will be possible to have a proper redistribution of seats which will do the West justice; will give the cities at least a percentage of the additional representation to which they are entitled ; and will provide a more accurate method of election. With these reforms it will be possible to elect a truly representative Commons, which is not attainable under existing conditions. A general election now means that a truly representative Parliament could not he elected until 1925.
Inasmuch as it is already "quite evident that in the next Parliament there will be a contest between the policy strongly backed by the West and an alternative policy, which will draw its strength from the East, it is desirable that the West should have all the members to which it is entitled. The fact that under a proper redistribution the West will gain at least twenty more members, while the East will lose ten, may have some bearing upon the demand that is being heard in the East, and which Mr. Mackenzie King voices for an early election.
Now, Sir, in closing, ^may I say that I hold the opinion, as many people do, that the plunging of the country into a general election at the present time would not be in the best interests of Canada. In spite of what my hon. friends argue, and in spite of what they present to this House, no man would deny that under the present war conditions, with conditions such as they are economically, industrially and socially all, over the world to-day, and to a greater or

lesser extent in 'Canada, to plunge this country into the chaos of a general election would not be wise in the interests of the country or in the interests of any individual party. My hon. friends need not cherish the belief that this Government and its supporters are afraid to meet the country at any time. They are not afraid. My hon. friends seem to entertain some dissatisfaction, not only with so many Liberals joining this party in 1917, but feel an acute distress that those hon. gentlemen are still staying with the Ministry at the present time. I would like to say to my hon. friends that when this Government does go to the country my belief is' a policy will be enunciated which will not only justify the strong grounds upon which my hon. friends from the Liberal party joined the Coalition in 1917, but will also justify in the fullest way the continuation of their adhesion to this party and what it stands for before the people.
If when this Government does go to the country the people should choose to put in another Government,. I cherish the belief that whatever Government does come into power will undertake the administration of this country in the sane constitutional methods to which we here, at all events, are so strongly adhering, and that those elements which would rather reverse all the constitutional principles for which we on both sides of the House have stood for so long will have such a severe lesson taught them that they will realize that no party, however violent or however influential, can divorce from the minds of true Canadians the determination to cherish .the institutions and to maintain the constitution for which they have stood so long. However, when that appeal is made, I believe, as I stated before, that this Government, which has met the conditions of the war and the problems which have arisen out of the war with courage and success, will have no difficulty in justifying their stand to-day and in bringing back to this House a party that will successfully carry on the affairs of this country for many years to come.
Mr. ROBERT H. HALBERT (North Ontario) : Mr. Speaker, after listening to the cross-firing which we have had for several days it requires considerable courage on the part of a new member to make what is called his maiden speech. As a new member I was greatly interested in the able addresses of the hon. members who have spoken, although, Mr. Speaker, some remarks have been made -which I think in the

interests of Canada would have been better unsaid.
I was pleased with the deserved tributes paid by previous speakers to leaders, both past and present, of His Majesty's Government and of His Majesty's loyal Opposition.
The subject of the designing and carrying out of the design of this magnificent building in which we h'ave the honour to meet for the first time has been pretty well .exhausted by men capable of doing justice to the subject and needs no further comment from me. In fact, the ground has been so well covered that there is very little left to be said. The reference made to the war and the Peace Treaty and the deserving tribute paid to our boys whose manly courage and work well done overseas made the Peace Treaty possible, I am sure, Mr. Speaker, is heartily endorsed and concurred in by every member of this House; but there are some matters mentioned in the address from the Throne and in the course of this debate upon it to which I wish to draw your attention, as you will notice that some do not appreciate any too well the fact that in four of the by-elections just held the electors of all shades of politics, callings and professions, sent men to sit in the cross-benches whom they, believed would represent them and not misrepresent them; and just here, Mr. Speaker, permit me, representing, as I do, the federal riding of North Ontario, represented previously in the House by the late lamented Colonel Sam Sharpe, to pay tribute to his memory by saying that he was a man who was held in the highest esteem by the electors of his riding, revered by his men overseas and, I believe, Sir, was esteemed and admired by his fellow members of the House of Commons, of which he was a member for some years.
Reference has been made to the farmers' organization as a "class" movement and it has been said that all classes should be represented. We believe so, too, and that is why we are here representing rural constituencies. We are here, Mr. Speaker, as a protest against class rule and class legislation. The Organized Farmers stand for British fair play, equal rights to all and special privileges to none. We are here to assist any Government that will give us sane, honest, economic and progressive legislation; and Government not subservient, to the Big Interests, but truly representing the ideals and aspirations of the great masses of the people. As some hon. gentle-

men apparently do not want to believe that we are not advocates of class legislation, permit me to read one clause from our constitution in reference to that matter:
By endeavouring to suppress personal, local, sectional, national, political, partisan and class prejudices, and thereby to promote the best Interests of Canada as a whole.
Mr. Speaker, attention has been drawn to the unrest in this country. No doubt there is unrest and a great many people believe that the present Government has outlived its usefulness and would like to see a Government in power that would pay more attention to ascertaining the real will of the people and carrying it out than to territorial boundaries and winning an election. If Canadian politics are to be saved from utter disgrace and if the bloodshed which has taken place in other countries is to be avoided we must have sufficient faith to trust democracy with democratic methods. If our grievances are to be settled by ballot-which I think should be-people must be allowed to use the ballot, and, what is more, the gerrymandering of present day partyism must be absolutely abandoned. When autocracy interferes with the channels of public expression it causes unrest and invites direct action.
Canada is essentially an agricultural country. Its chief asset is the soil, the foundation upon which all the superstructure stands. While we admit that the products of sea, forest and mines are known to be great, yet the possibilities in plant and animal production far exceed them all in magnitude and importance. The products of the mines are taken, never to be restored; the forests to be perhaps partially renewed after many years; but .the farm production where intelligently carried on has been secure without depleting to any appreciable extent nature's storehouse of resources.
The manufacturing industry, it is true, has come to play an important part in the nation's progress, yet a great many of them are dependent on farming for their raw material, and a great many of them must look to the rural districts for the great bulk of the market for their finished product. Therefore, the progress in agriculture in Canada is a national concern. It affects every one, and everything possible should be done to make agricultural life attractive and remunerative so that labour and capital will be attracted to the land instead of away from it as it is at present.
Mr. Speaker, every one who has the true interest of Canada at heart desires to see
the present unrest satisfactorily settled. This can be done by an honest effort on the part of all. To my mind, one of the greatest causes of the unrest lies in our tariff laws, which affect to a very great extent the high cost of living; but, Mr. Speaker, as you have intimated that will be discussed in the Budget debate, I will not discuss it at the present time, except to refer to what has already been said with regard to re-establishment of the returned soldier.
In connection with the re-establishment of the returned soldier it has been urged that he should go on the land. We hope to see a good many returned soldiers go on the land. But when they do so they find that the tariff affects them very materially so far as the cost of the implements of production is concerned. It , has been said that a large amount of the money necessary to pay our war debt has to be taken out of the top six inches of the soil. You ask the returned soldier to go on the land and to take out of the top six inches of the soil enough to ipaf for the canned goods he eats as well as for the shells he fired when over in the trenches fighting for democracy. Well, suppose he does that for a number of years and eventually succumbs under the heavy burden, what does the tariff do then? It collects from the heirs a percentage by way of taxation even on his shroud, on his coffin, on the screw-nails that fasten down the lid of his coffin, and on the shovel with which the grave digger digs his grave. No doubt the same people who impose these tariffs may be lamenting the fact that they cannot follow him over the Jordan and put a tax on his royal robe.
With regard to the amendment of the hon. leader of the Opposition, I may say that while I do not agree with the wording of it, I shall support it because I believe that the present administration has not the confidence of the people, as the by-elections just held go to prove. If their record is as good and their policy as popular and pleasing as they would try to make us believe, they should be anxious to go to the country and get the endorsation of the people to carry on. The question is not who will be in power, but who will give the people the best legislation in the interests of Canada; and of that the people should be the judge.
Mr. Speaker, there is one other matter mentioned in the Address about which I wish to speak before taking my seat, and that is the Franchise Act. We who have been born in Canada sometimes fail, I


Mr. H. C. HOCKEN (Toronto West):: Mr. Speaker, I desire to make a few observations at this point chiefly because I think that my hon. friends on the other side would be disappointed if I did not. What has been
fltr. Halbert.!
said this afternoon will, I am sure, lead them to expect me to say a few words.
The attack that has been made upon the President of the Council (Hon. N. W. Bowell) was so thin, so stale, and so vindictive that it will leave no impression on the country unfavourable to the President of the Council. That kind of thing always reacts on tire man who is responsible for it, and I am sure that that will be the case in this instance.
The attack on the President of the Council was due to his criticisms of some of the religious orders in the war. As to the accuracy in detail of what he said I have no knowledge. But in support of what he said at North Bay I desire to quote a very eminent and brave French-Canadian, who for many years was a much admired citizen of my own city, a man with whom I enjoyed very pleasant social relations, I refer to General Lessard. Here is a report of something that he said during the progress of the war:	.
There is a general complaint that the lower clergy of the Province have not lent an attentive ear to the voice of the higher Episcopal _ authorities so as to bring its message in regard to the duty of the French-Canadians at the present time to recruit the race as a whole.
He pointed out the grave responsibility that the lower clergy assumed in putting a damper on the appeal of the hierarchy to its children. As far as he himself was concerned he expected a more wholehearted co-operation from the clergy in conformity with the great influence which . it exercises on the destinies of the French-Canadian. He might say the same thing about their leaders-those who directed opinion in Quebec. It was long enough that politics had been a bar to the complete spirit of union necessary to rouse up the French-Canadian people to rally to the great cause.
I	desire to read also a paragraph from a letter written to Colonel Obed Smith, a Liberal, by a French-Canadian who was serving at the front, about the time of the disturbances in the city of Quebec. It reads:	[DOT]
' The question should be handled with steel gauntlets,' he says, 1 Ignorance is rampant in my native province. The blame is on the shoulders of the Fathers of Confederation, who allowed two official languages. A dual language begets separate schools, they beget ignorance.
It may require a small army to enforce the radical changes after the war, hut we shall have it. The indifference of Quebec in this struggle will be a powerful lever in the hands of a bold leader.'


Joseph Archambault: What is the name of the miscreant who wrote that letter?


Horatio Clarence Hocken: The letter was given by the writer to Colonel Obed Smith.


Joseph Archambault: Who wrote the letter?


Horatio Clarence Hocken: A French-Canadian at the front.
Mr. ARCH AM,B AULT: Anonymous?


Horatio Clarence Hocken: No, Colonel Obed Smith was a man who was serving and who had a good deal of prominence iii this country. Therefore, there is a good deal of support for what the President of the Council (Mr. Rowell) said and for which he has been criticised so severely on at least two separate occasions.
The hon. member for Russell (Mr. Murphy) produced a document from which he read a number of extracts. I am familiar with the literature of the Orange Association, and this bears none of the earmarks of that organization. I venture to say that this document from which he read was printed in either Nova Scotia or Quebec; a document something of this kind has been sent out, but to what extent it is garbled, I do not know. I can, however, say this for myself and for the names of those Past Grand Officers that appear on the document; I did not sign such a document, and I have no reason to believe that they did. As to the position taken in this document with regard to schools, with regard to the war, and with regard to the association of which I am a member, I am prepared to defend the substance of everything that appears there. I want to point out to the House that in this debate I am not the aggressor; I am doing as every true Orangeman ought to do, standing on the defensive, defending his principles and convictions as straightforwardly as it is the practice of members of the association to do. I will endeavour to do that, Sir, without saying a word that should give my hon. friends opposite who disagree with me in matters of faith any just cause for offence.
My course, since I came into this House -and this is my fourth session-has been *one of conciliation. I think I may fairly say-and my hon. friends opposite will agree with me-that I have not sought any occasion to stir up racial strife or to express any opinions that I thought might be offensive to any one of them. At the same time, I do not purpose sitting in my seat and hear the. institution with which I am connected attacked without making a reply. This document refers to the language question which has been the bone of contention between Quebec and Ontario. It arose shortly before the war and was the occasion during the war of a very serious agitation in certain parts of Ontario as well as in Quebec. The charge was that the province of Ontario had proscribed the
French language. That is not so. I have before me regulation 17 which says:
Where necessary in the case of Frenchspeaking pupils, French may be used as the language of instruction and communication; but such use of French shall not be continued beyond Form 1 excepting during the school year of 1912-13, when it may also be used as the language of instruction and communication in the case of pupils beyond Form 1, who owing to previous defective training, are unable to speak and understand the English language.
Further than that, upon a report of the chief inspector, the French language may be used for communication and instruction up to the fourth form.
I think that is a reasonable regulation, especially when we all realize, as has been admitted even by the counsel for the French-tCanadian Educational Association that, under the constitution of this country, there is no obligation upon the province of Ontario to allow French to be taught at all, and when so many believe that it is [DOT] impossible in the primary schools to teach two languages successfully.


Mr. CANNON:: When was that proved?
'Mr. HOCKEN: I say that is the general belief in the province of Ontario.


Lucien Cannon: That is a wrong belief.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: It is the belief of that
eminent Episcopal Divine,. Bishop Fallon, of London, and I am in his company when I'say that in my belief two languages cannot be taught successfully in the primary schools. We make provision in the secondary schools for the teaching of French, and practically every child that goes into the secondary schools studies French.


Mr. BELAND:: Has the Bishop to whom the hon. member refers ever learned French?


Horatio Clarence Hocken: I have never tested him, so I am unable to answer that question.


Lucien Cannon: If it is impossible in the primary schools of Ontario to teach both languages, English and French successfully, how is it that both languages are taught successfully in Quebec?


Air. EDWARDS:: They are so much
cleverer than wre.


Lucien Cannon: I think so.


Mr. BEST:: Sit down. You started it;
take your medicine.


Lucien Cannon: Let the hon. member
answer the question.


Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER:: The hon. member for Toronto West has the floor, and I hope he will be permitted to continue his speech without interruption.


Lucien Cannon: I put him a question, and I think my question is legitimate and I would like to have an answer.


Georges Henri Boivin: It is within
the right of the hon. member to answer the question or not, but he should at least be given an opportunity to do so.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: 
Lucien Cannon: Why not?


Horatio Clarence Hocken: Behind that claim is
this: that the French language shall have the same status in every province as it has in the province of Quebec.


Lucien Cannon: That is the constitution.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: No. I should like to read the opinion of Hon. Senator Belcourt, who was specially delegated to prepare a reasoned opinion of the law upon the subject. He said:
The true fact, regrettable as it may be, is that for the federal domain and the provincial domain of Quebec, there is but the constitution which defines equality of both languages at the Dominion Parliament, at the Quebec Parliament, before the Federal tribunal or courts, and also before the courts of the Province of Quebec is the French language on an equal footing with the English language. Section 133 of the British North America Act which proclaims equal rights of the French and English before the Federal House, the Federal courts and before the provincial house of Quebec and the provincial courts, and in section 93 of the same Act which gives to each province the exclusve power to legislate in matters of education, constitute the sum total of the rights officially recognized in favour of the French-Canadian people of the Dominion of Canada; these are the only rights recognized in favour of our race; they are the only rights which cannot be stripped from us without the intervention of the Imperial Parliament; they are the only rights which the constitution and the law formally guaranteed to us; they are the only rights which the law will permit us to exact and about which it gives us the means whereby to exact the same.
I hope my hon. friend will accept the reasoned opinion of Senator Belcourt. That was also admitted by Sir Wilfrid Laurier.


Lucien Cannon: If I understand Senator Belcount's opinio'n properly, federally speaking, the French and English languages are on an equal footing. Is not that the case?


Horatio Clarence Hocken: No. They are on an equal footing in the federal courts, and in the Houses of Parliament, but not in the schools. It is just 'as well to have this matter out now we are at it. There has been a movement vigorously and energetically pressed, to surround the province of Ontario with a French population which would enable the French to secure about twenty seats in the legislature, and thus dominate the policy of the province.


Lucien Cannon: Why not?


Horatio Clarence Hocken: Why not resist it, if we do not agree with the principles that prevail in your province? Father Hamon, the head of the Jesuit order, has admitted that this movement is going on. He .wrote a book on French-Canadian aims and ambitions in which he said this:	.
None of the obstacles met have checked the settlement of the valley of the Ottawa and of the Province of Ontario. And yet, for the French-Canadian, is not Ontario a country different from theirs, both in religion and language, and even in polities, in that, at least, which relates to local interests? In spite of these difficulties, in spite of a tenacious English element, hostile to the invasion and seeking by all possible means to prevent it, the French-Canadian pushes towards tile end for .which he set out. The French-Canadian infiltrate themselves everywhere in those counties of Ontario which divide it from the province of Quebec, and continue bravely to march toward the West .


Lucien Cannon: That is their right.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: Yes. To continue:
The policy of the church is to guide the movement, plan and forward settlement, and especially the parish system, the parochial school, and the religious and national societies.


Lucien Cannon: That is their duty.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: Then to watch and wait for providential
developments, that she may mass and lead the people for the effective overthrow of Protestant error and paganism.


William Cameron Edwards: That is their hope.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: The French-Canadian race is God's chosen
people to save North America and to restore its population to the bosom of the church of Rome. Is this a dream? No, it is more; it is an. everyday issue.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: As far as the people of the. Protestant section of Ontario are concerned we have just as much right to oppose that
movement as the hierarchy of Quebec has to encourage and promote it?


Lucien Cannon: Who is preventing you?


Horatio Clarence Hocken: Nobody yet. We are doing the best we can to resist the movement, but we have not succeeded quite so well as we would like.
Mr.. CANNON: Would my hon. friend allow me a question?


John Best: Keep quiet over there.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Georges Henri Boivin: Order. The hon. member for Dorchester (Mr. Cannon) has asked permission to ask a question of the hon. member for West Toronto (Mr. Hocken). Had the hon. member for West Toronto retained the floor, the hon. member for Dorchester would certainly not have had that right, but as the hon. member for Toronto has taken his seat the hon. member for Dorchester is perfectly justified in asking his question.


Lucien Cannon: Will the hon. member for West Toronto give me one example where the Catholic church in the province of Quebec has impeded or tried to impede any Protestant movements in the province of Quebec?


Horatio Clarence Hocken: I do not live in the province of Quebec.


Lucien Cannon: Happily for us.


Joseph Archambault: We do not grow your kind.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: In answer to my hon.
friend from Dorchester I could give many instances, and I may do that later. Just now I am trying to give my reasons why the institution which I represent as one of its officers, resists the extension of the French language into the province of Ontario, believing it to be inimical to the interests of the English-speaking people of that province, and contrary to the constitution. I am supported in that by some of the most eminent members of the Roman Catholic church. There are clergymen in this city, as well as the Bishop of London, who say that this is being done by the bishops and the French hierarchy.
There is another reason why we do not want this to go on because the aim is to extend ecclesiastical government to the province of Ontario. The province of Quebec is ruled by the ecclesiastics. The people must take their politics as well as their religion from the bishops. We do not want

that hind of thing in Ontario, because we have discovered that when clericals rule a country there is always restraint upon freedom. It is even worse, Mr. Speaker, when this restraint is imposed by the members of a faith whose religious leaders have the power, according to the belief of those who follow them, to open or close the doors of heaven. The /Protestant preacher has his own personal influence and nothing more, but the bishop of the Roman church has the sacraments and that makes a good deal of difference. My hon. friend dissents from my statement that in politics they are governed, as they are in spiritual matters, by their clerical leaders. Let me give an instance to prove my point. It is a well known fact that if a newspaper publishes matter which is offensive, or thought to be injurious to the interests of religion in Quebec, that newspaper can have the ban put upon it, and it can be closed up. It has to suspend publication. That happened to one of these papers some years ago.


An hon. MEMBER:: How many years ago?


Horatio Clarence Hocken: I cannot give you the exact year' but I remember the case very well. It does not apply to newspapers only but to pamphlets. A man cannot write a book in Quebec that declares for freedom in politics without having to take it back.


An hon. MEMBER :: 


Horatio Clarence Hocken: Ah; I will give you a notable instance of that. I will tell you all about it. The most interesting I have to present is that of a book or pamphlet written by the Hon. L. 0. David. The writer's object was to uphold the proposition, that the priests ought to confine themselves to the spiritual domain, and as his reason for so saying he quoted from history to show that whenever they meddled with secular affairs it was to their own hurt and that of the province. Starting by laying down "that bishops and priests are men subject to error" he went on to point out how, in his view, they erred in 1837 and at each subsequent crisis when French nationality was in jeopardy. Professedly a devout Catholic, Senator David deplored this, blaming the mistaken course of the priests to ignorance of public sentiment. "The truth," he declares, "reaches them (the priests) with difficulty through the fumes of the incense which envelops them," and he warned them to awake from their sleep of false security and escape the storm which menaced them by leaving politics alone.

The little book, which was issued in September, 1896, was condemned by the bishops in a joint pastoral in January following. After stating the book had been submitted to the Holy Office at Rome and been formally condemned "with the approval of the sovereign pontiff," the rule is laid down that no layman "has authority to judge, condemn, or approve of doctrines or writings. .	. It is, by your bishops and the
priests, who- are united with them, that you are to receive the teachings of the Holy See. . . . to be with the Pope you must not be in opposition to the bishops."


Lucien Cannon: Will the hon. gentleman allow me a question?


Horatio Clarence Hocken: No, not just now. The judgment against this book was that every person having a copy should destroy it and that any copies in the hands of the author should also be destroyed. Senator David said:
When I wrote the little book 1 had no idea of the storm I was raising. I thought I was doing the clergy a service in speaking out the thoughts that X could not drive from my mind. After the last general election I noticed a growing feeling against clerical interference in politics, and simply gave it publication. They may condemn me; they may excommunicate me. I cannot help that, but I shall remain a Catholic-that is my religion, and they cannot take my faith from me.
This is the significant paragraph to which I am trying to lead up. He said:
I thought when I wrote my book that, as a British subject, I had a perfect right to do so. If not, there is something wrong, for I feel that, as a French Canadian and a Catholic, I should have the same rights in politics as my Englishspeaking brethren.
A more lamentable confession by a public man has seldom been made than that he is not allowed to exercise his own judgment in writing a book criticising the political activities within his own province. If that does not prove my case that there is an ecclesiastical government in Quebec I do not know what more would be required. We do not want that in Ontario. We do not want the peculiar laws established by the church in Quebec. We do not want the tithing system. Down in the county of Prescott, although there are no such laws in this province, a county judge gave a judgment that the tithing laws of Quebec operated in the province of Ontario and he compelled a man to pay his tithe for the building of a church. That is introducing something into Ontario which we object to.


Edmond Proulx: I do not think that was the purport of the judgment. It was not

that the tithing system of Quebec was in force in Ontario but it was that when a man enjoys the services of a priest he ought to pay for them.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: !If my hon. friend can see any distinction I would like to know it. If this man enjoyed the services of a priest he ought to pay for, them but my point is that he should not be compelled by law to pay for them because there is no such law in Ontario and it is a law that we do not want in Ontario.
* Mr. CANNON: Will the hon. gentleman allow me a question?


Horatio Clarence Hocken: No, not now.


Lucien Cannon: It is significant; the answer must be hard.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: It is so late that I would rather not be interrupted. There are many other things of that kind that I do not propose to go into but I want to explain why it is that we object to these things.
Now why should the French desire to engraft these laws on Ontario? It is to get control of that province. That may be a perfectly legitimate ambition; they have the right to do so if they can; but I submit that they have no right to condemn us for resisting such a policy when we do not believe in it. If the French Canadians desire that kind of Government in the province of Quebec well and good, let them have it; but they should keep it there and not try to drag it into the province of Ontario. How does it come,. Mr. Speaker, if there is not a settled purpose by powerful and wealthy organizations to get control of Ontario-why is it they infiltrate into Northern Ontario and do not go into Northern Quebec? There is a lot of good land in the northern parts of Quebec, the people of that province could go and live under their own laws and under their own peculiar institutions. Nobody in the province of Ontario has ever suggested we should go down and. interfere with their local autonomy. They can have any kind of government in Quebec that they desire, but we are not going to have it brought into the province of Ontario if we can prevent it. A prominent public man told me that he got on the Transcontinental train at Quebec, about a year ago, and it was occupied by a number of colonists and for a distance of many miles fresh colonists at intervals boarded the train.. Not a single one of them detrained in the province of Quebec; they were all billed for the northern parts of Ontario. They go 19
there to develop their own institutions and to overcome the institutions that we have established there at the present time. I repeat that the French Canadians have a perfect right to do that, they have a perfect right to go into the province of Ontario, but we have an equal right to fix the terms upon which they shall come. This policy to which I have reference is one that politicians are working out for their future aggrandizement and they are looking forward to the time when the peculiar institutions of their province will be spread over the province of Ontario.
Another matter to which reference was made in the circular in question was the war. We were aggrieved at the action of Quebec in the war, and it could not be otherwise. I am not going to rub it in, but I want to state our case. We were fighting for France as the ally of our Old Motherland, and we thought that surely the people who claim French descent, and had French blood in their veins, would do as much for their Mother country as we were doing for our Mother country. Especially, in our opinion, should that have been the case, when the very existence of France was at stake-


Lucien Cannon: What about England?


Horatio Clarence Hocken: -much more so than that of England. England had a. navy that could resist invasion, but the very existence of France hung in the balance in that war. And we expected our French Canadian fellow citizens to join us at least in -proportionately equal numbers to go to her defence. Now they did not do that, and it surely cannot surprise my hon. friend opposite-


Lucien Cannon: Not from you.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: -that in the province of Ontario, and in the cfty of Toronto, some resentment should be felt on that account. We had not, perhaps, so much right to respond to the call that was made from Europe as the men from the province of Quebec. I remember, Sir,-as I stated in this House once before-an old friend of mine, and a faithful follower of the late Sir Wilfrid Laurier as long as he lived, who used to come to my office and say that if there should be a war in which England and France would fight together that would be the thing that would unite Canada. We agreed that if such a thing should ever occur-


Lucien Cannon: Were you consulted?


Horatio Clarence Hocken: -that would certainly bring the two races in this country together; and if those who my hon. friends opposite represent had taken the part they should have taken there would have been in our province and in every other province, an open door to every ambition they had. Sir, in practically every home-certainly in every Orange home in Canada-there was the deepest anxiety and there were broken hearts over the boys who were fighting in the trenches, many of whom had laid down their lives in France and in Flanders. Go to the West and the records of the Institution that I, as an officer, represent, will show that in some oases practically every eligible member of the Institution in a particular section was off on the firing line. In the city of Toronto there were more Orangemen went overseas voluntarily out of approximately 30,<}00 members than there were out of the 1,800,000 French Canadians in the province of Quebec.	'


Lucien Cannon: Will my hon. friend let me ask him a question?


Horatio Clarence Hocken: Not just now.


Lucien Cannon: How about the Orangemen who armed themselves against England before the war.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: Mr. Speaker, I am discussing Canada.


Lucien Cannon: Discuss the Orangemen
for a while, be honest.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: I am doing so. Let me say to my hon. friend that when the war did break out in no part of the British Empire did the men respond as cheerfully and as numerously as they did from the province of Ulster.


Lucien Cannon: Not any better than anywhere else.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: The Ulster Brigade, and the Ulster people had nothing to be ashamed of in the war. They went out and laid down their lives just as freely as the Canadians did, and they performed good work. Mr. Speaker, I ask you, and I ask this House, if it is any wonder that men who sent their members out, as this organization did-sent more out of one city than were sent by the French Canadians out of the whole province of Quebec, numbering probably 1,800,000 of that race-is it any wonder that there should be resentment on our part, and is it surprising that sometimes strong language was used in that connection?


Lucien Cannon: What about our part?


Horatio Clarence Hocken: There has been a good
deal of talk about the insults that were levelled at Quebec but I do not want to go into that.


Lucien Cannon: You have been into that already. Do not worry about that.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: The course adopted by
the members of this institution was exactly in line with their record ever since 1912. Every time rebellion has raised its head in this country, or invasion has been threatened, the men who belonged to this organization were the back-bone of the force that put it down.


Lucien Cannon: Edward Carson.
Mr. HiOCKEN:	In 1837 the rebellion in
what is now the province of Ontario was put down by the members of this Institution; and they bore a large part in the fights in 1866 at Ridgeway and Fort Erie. Yes, and they went up to Fort Garry in 1870, and in doing so they committed a crime in the estimation of my hon. friends opposite. They took their part in the fight there, and they had to go up again in 1885 when the rebellion was revived. The members of this organization went out to South Africa by the thousand in the Boer war of 1900, and again in 1914 almost to a man went to the Front, the members of the Orange order who were eligible for such service. I submit, Mr. Speaker, that men who have served Canada in that way, men who have played a noble part in the terrible crisis that we have gone through deserve respect of the country and are entitled to credit for the patriotic services they have rendered.
Why is that, Sir? Because they are trained in loyalty to the British Empire. They have in the past resisted every attempt to dismember the Empire, and they will be true to their convictions in that regard as long as they exist.
My hon. friend will remember that in some places an Orangeman is spoken of as a bigot. Nothing could be further from the truth. Orangemen are the most tolerant body of men in the world. Civil and religious liberty is nowhere so universal as in those places in which this institution is strong. In no province and city of this Dominion are the people of the same faith as my hon. friends opposite given more freedom than in the province of Ontario and in the city of Toronto. Why, Mr. Speaker, the people of Toronto contributed $260,000 to carry on the work of the Knights of

Columbus- an organization composed entirely of men of the opposite faith, and I suppose three-quarters of that sum came from the pockets of Protestants. Is that intolerance, is that bigotry? And yet such is typical of the organization.
Do hon. gentlemen forget that the Orange organization has invariably stood for its principles and convictions regardless of the personnel of our Governments? In the days of Macdonald and Cartier the Orangemen of Ontario were supporting them. Why? Because, Mr. Speaker, Macdonald and Cartier had a policy that was approved by the members of that institution-a policy for the building up of this country as a part of the British Empire, and they supported those two leaders as faithfully as did any of their fellow Canadians.
They did more than that, Sir. When Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the late leader of the party across the floor first became Prime Minister he had no stronger supporters in the province of Ontario than the members of this institution. In the City of Toronto, his opponent, the late Sir Charles Tupper, was not allowed to speak. The men who prevented him from speaking were members of the institution which I am trying to defend here to-night, and they worked energetically for the return of Sir Wilfrid Laurier and the party that he represented. They did that, Sir, because his party expressed their convictions, and they have done that in every instance from the tune the institution was founded ninety years ago to the present day.
I venture to say that had it not been for the members of this institution in the City of Montreal, my right hon. friend the Minister of Justice (Mr. Doherty) would not have been elected. They did not do that, Mr. Speaker, in any hope of reward, they knew they had nothing to expect from the Minister of Justice, but he stood for the things in which they believed. And I submit to this House, Mr. Speaker, that there is nothing finer in a citizen than that he shall stand for convictions that he honestly holds. If he does that he is a man to be admired; if he does not, he is not a good citizen.
My hon. friends opposite may think that the Orange order is a Conservative organization.


An hon. MEMBER:: Hear, hear.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: Well, what about their supporting the late Sir Wilfrid Laurier; what about their defeating Sir Rodman Roblin in Manitoba if the order is a Con- servative organization? Orangemen went solidly against Sir Rodman Roblin, and he admitted from the windows of his news-
19i	*	-	!
paper office, the night of his defeat that his overthrow was brought about by the desertion of his old-time Orange friends. I state that, Mr. Speaker, to emphasize the fact that these men stand for their convictions as good citizens ought to.
I could go on, Mr. Speaker, if I so desired and make some reference to another organization the Knights of Columbus-an organization of just the same kind as the Orange Order.


Jacques Bureau: Why don't they fuse?
Mr- HOCKEN: They are both patriotic
and religious; their only difference is in their religious faith. I have here the Congressional Record, and I find in it the oath taken by the Knights of Columbus of the third degree. I have the right, I presume, Mr. Speaker, to put this upon Hansard, but I am not going to do so.


An hon. MEMBER:: How fickle.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: I will tell you why. My friends in the Knights of Columbus deny the accuracy of this oath. I am not able to prove that it is correct, and as it is not my practice to use anything here or elsewhere unless I can substantiate it, I am going to try to convince my hon. friends that I desire to be fair with them and with all they represent.
Mr. Speaker, the Orange Order is a bulwark of the constitution-a powerful force for orderly government and evenhanded justice. The late Mr. Justice McMahon, himself a member of the same religious faith as my friends opposite, had an opportunity during the course of a trial presided over by him to have all the ritual and obligations of the order put before him, and he gave it as his unbiased opinion that any institution founded upon the principles therein stated was one that ought to be supported, and one that must be a benefit to the community.
In closing, Sir, I just want to say that if the Roman Catholic church will cease to be a political institution-will surrender its claims to temporal power and confine its activities * to spiritual things, there will be no need for the Orange Order. But until that time comes the order will exist and will grow in strength and power, because we do not believe in the union of temporal power with spiritual domination, and as long as the Vatican maintains that it has the right to rule the world, and in the final analysis to be the sole judge, it must get resistance from Protestants and from members of the Orange Order.
There are just one or two reasons why the Order should continue to exist, Mr. Speaker,

but I will only give you one reason. It is because there are such men in public life as the hon. member for Russell (Mr. Murphy).


Lucien Cannon: And yourself.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: 
Joseph Archambault: Mr. Speaker, at this late
hour I will not occupy much of the time of the House-
.Some hon. MEMBERS: Hear, 'hear.
Tffij.. ARCHAMBAULT: -but I can assure >my hon. cheering friends that I will take The necessary time. I shall not repeat the -arguments that were put forward by the 'leader of the Opposition (Mr. Mackenzie Xing) and the others who,spoke in support of the amendment to the motion for an Address in reply to the speech from the Throne.	.
Before making my argument, which will be an historical argument in favour of the early dissolution of Parliament, I wish to join the other members who have offered their felicitations to the mover (Mr. Cronyn) and to the seconder (Mr. McGregor) of the Address. But at the same time, Mr. Speaker, I must again this year protest against the seconder of the Address being 
an English-speaking rather than a Frenchspeaking gentleman. As to the other speeches made by hon. members on your right, may I be permitted to mention just a few typical remarks?
The hon. member for Parkdale (Mr. Mowat) made a very frank and honest remark-the most honest, I believe, hfe ever made in this House'-when he said that the reason why he did not go back to the Liberal fold when the war was qver was because there was no coal in the bin and the larder was empty. That remark was quite superfluous; we knew all along that his reason for not coming back to the Liberal party was a "stomachal" one.
A somewhat similar typical remark, I observed, came from the member for Yukon (Mr. A. Thompson), who stated emphatically that he did not want an election. Sir, some people have an uncouth way of mak-_ ing their sores and their fears conspicuous.
The other two typical remarks to which I wish to direct attention were made by the Minister of the Interior (Hon. Mr. Meighen), and may be found on page 161 of Unrevised Hansard. The member for Marquette (Hon. Mr. Crerar) had stated that he would give the votes to aliens and make them fight. The Minister of the Interior made reference to this assertion, and the member for Marquette said, page 161:
It was the judgment of the military authorities of the United States. They enrolled these men and the casualty lists, when they came back to the United States, contained many foreign names.
The Minister of the Interior replied in this way:
I am informed on authority of, the highest character that the military men of the United States did not allow them in the front line. But I would prefer to take my example, even in matters of the late war, from the British Empire, rather than from the United States.
Very good; but not a week, a day, or an hour afterwards, but something like two minutes afterwards, the Minister of the Interior took his example, not from the British Empire, but from the United States. On the same page he is reported as follows:
The principle that the hon. gentleman attacks, right or wrong, has been more the subject of debate and has been more thoroughly reviewed on this continent than any other principle ever presented to a free, people for one hundred and twenty-five years. Its first sponsor on the American continent was the father of the American Republic, George Washington. Was he the friend and ally of special privilege and the enemy of the common people? The second statute that he placed on the statute books of the United States, after it became a nation, was a statute embodying In very pronounced form the principle that the hon. gentleman

impugns. Its next prominent sponsor (indeed very, very few opposed it), was the founder of the other great political' party in the country, Thomas Jefferson. Coming nearer to our own time, the man who laid, the foundations of the present tariff policy of the United States in general form was the man who emancipated the slaves in the United States, Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln was an adherent throughout his life to the principle that the hon. gentleman attacks. Was he either the servant or the ally of special privilege? Was he the enemy of the common people of his country? Can such an allegation be levelled at Theodore Roosevelt, whose principles were just the same?
Well, Sir, is this in accordance with the minister's previous assertion that he would prefer to take his example from the British Empire? Not quite;-but the reason is very-clear to me. In the one case it suited his argument to cite England as an example; in the other' case to cite England as an example would have destroyed his argument. So that the minister displayed his ultra-loyalism when it would be effective, but hid it very carefully away when it might have been harmful to his argument, showing the suppleness of which he is a past master.
The hon. minister also referred to his "successful" trip to New Brunswick and to the "successful" part he took in the Victoria and Carleton election. I will not chide him on the success of his trip, but I cannot let the incident pass without bringing to the attention of the House the fact that the candidate whom he, with the Postmaster General, Hon. Mr. Blondin, and the Minister of Labour, Hon. Mr. Robertson, supported, was the notorious Colonel Mel- [DOT] ville, who organized wholesale perjury during the last election at St. Johns barracks, and who tampered with the franchise in an effort to defeat the will of the electors of Chambly and Vercheres. I have nothing to add, Sir, but simply to cite the French dioton: "Dis-moi qui tu hantes,. je te dirai qui tu es."
I wish also to reply briefly to the hon. member for West Toronto (Mr. Hocken):
I am informed that at the first sitting of this House in the month of March, 1918, when the hon. member did not protest in the House against the' nomination of the hon. member for Shefford (Mr. Boivin) as Deputy Speaker, he was .censured by his lodge. It is evidently for fear of being chastised again that he has tried vainly for half an hour to-night to ansvrer the grave and irrefutable charges brought forward by the hon. member for Russell (Mr. Murphy). His answers are in the same spirit as the articles written in the Orange Sentinel.
My hon. friend read a letter purporting to be from a French Canadian, an anonymous letter, published evidently in his paper to enlarge its circulation, as all letters published in that paper are. I should not say that all the letters are anonymous, because I find a letter signed very courageously by a gentleman who does not give his proper name, but signs himself " a Royal Purple Marksman." My hon. friend stated also that he never raised any race cry in this House and claimed that he was a most tolerant man. He reminds me of the ancient dragon with two heads, one blowing cold and the other blowing hot. He very seldom raises a race cry in this House, that is true but he edits a race cry in his rag. I take the edition of the 11th of March, the last number, on the front page of which there are twelve articles, every one of which, with one exception, is a race cry. The first article is entitled, " Our Point of View " and it is an attack on the French people of Ontario in regard to the school question. The second article is entitled: " Rome, the Bible and the Public School."- The third article is entitled, " Possibilities in the New Plan for Ireland'," an attack on the Catholics of Ireland. The fourth article is entitled, " The Pope and the Turk "; other articles are entitled respectively, " A Clerical Grafter ", " The Vatican Mission ", " Irish Land Purchase ", and " Evading the Facts ",-the last being an attack upon Toronto Saturday Night for defending the Irish Catholics of Ireland. I fail to understand why my hon. friend states that he is very moderate, and that he is not taking his full share in spreading racial prejudice in this country.
My hen. friend also stated that he had a great fear of the immigration of the French-Canadians into Ontario. He did not state the ground for his fear; he will not state it, but he knows it. The reason is one that was given to-night by the hon. member for Quebec East (Mr. Lapointe), namely, that the increase of our population is by nature and not by artificial processes. The fear of my hon. friend is that the love that the French-Canadians have for cradles and children might interfere with the love that my hon. friend's brothers have for kennels and Pomeranians. My hon. friend also stated, in order to show that his brothers are broad-minded, that the Orangemen elected the Minister of Justice (Mr. Doherty)-and I am sorry that the Minister of Justice has left his seat-in St. Anne's. I will give the House an example

of the love the hon. member for Toronto West (Mr. Hooken) has for the Minister of Justice. This is a letter published in the Orange Sentinel of January 29, page 3:
The House Leadership.
Sir,
I am sorry to read that C. J. Doherty will be House leader during the coming session. That news would be more in its place under a heading like this: "Just one more slap in the face for Protestants". Is there no other man in the Union party capable of taking Borden's place? I lost my two nearest neighbours by supporting 'Union Government when they went into power. I would do it again under the same circumstances, but under no condition could I support that party now. Who is running the country, Borden. Doherty, or the Pope? Could we expect much less from either of the latter two? Why does Borden still bend under pressure from Quebec after the rest of Canada told him at the last election that he could run Canada without the French? What did he do under conscription any more than drain the protestant farms of the last of its manhood? I do not think he will be proud of the fact or results at the next election. Remember-[DOT]
And this is probably the reason why the hon. member does not want an election.
Remember, I am not sore over having to part with a son, as I did not have any, and was physically unfit myself.
This Orange brother evidently made a tremendous sacrifice for his country. To continue:
But I sympathize with those that had sons. All this while the French looked on or hid in the timber. Why were they pardoned? Was it to cheer up the boys who fought, bled and in many instances died for them? I can't agree with you in having any further use for R. L. Borden. Give us a Leader who can stand alone, not one that looks for a prop from the French. Surely there are such men among Protestants who could fill Borden's place. Kindly enlighten me if I am on the wrong track, although all I have ever done to merit the granting of this favour, is paid my subscription (none too prompt at times) and read the paper regularly and found much information of great importance and help. Keep up the good ^yorlc according to your views. Raise the price if necessary, for I am sure no person could reasonably complain, even if we can't always see the same as you. Though not an Orangeman I fully agree with the principles.
David J. Jones.
The hon. member is responsible for everything published in his newspaper, responsible, perhaps, to Jones too, but he did not answer this letter. Let me now come to the amendment.
One reason why I rose to-night in support of the amendment of the hon. leader of the Opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King) was to give the House an historical argument regarding the early dissolution of Parliament. History is a subject which is

very useful to men who study political questions. My second reason is that, being a descendant of one of the first settlers of Montreal, I am very fond and proud of Canada, and I deplore the fact that some people in this country are under the impression that the history of Canada started in 1867. Some even think it started only when the Western provinces came into Confederation. I never felt so miserable as one day last year when an hon. member asked me, " Who was that man Cartier whose centenary they are celebrating in Montreal?" The period which I wish to bring to the attention of the House is from the year 1841 to 1847, covering the passing of the Act of Union of 1840 and the elections following the passing of that Act.
For a thorough understanding of the underlying currents existing before 1841 it is necessary to describe briefly the turmoil into which Canada was plunged from 1760 to 1840 by the autocratic rule, not of England, but of its governors and their entourage. In Upper Canada the autocratic creed was represented by the Family Compact, composed of men who kept for themselves all the high and remunerative positions, as well as the wealth of the country in the granting of lands and who were bitter opponents of the reformers who were preaching and figthing for responsible government. Those who wanted to protest were ostracized. Robert Gourlay was arrested in 1818 for preparing a petition to the Mother Country, and, although acquitted, and although a thorough Scotchman, he was de

 ported by the Government of that time. William Lyon Mackenzie because he had stated that " the powers claimed by the Tory executive were nearly as arbitrary as the iron rule of the Czar of Muscovy," was charged with a breach of the privileges of the House and expelled from Parliament. Five times he was re-elected by the electors of York, and five times he was forcibly prevented from taking his seat, the autocrats of that time ruling that " they could not prevent the electors from electing whom they please." Evidently they were not aware of the refinements of the War-time Elections Act, " but that they could by a mere resolution pass judgment on the eligibility of the persons elected to sit and vote." Colborne and Sir Francis Bond Head, enslaved by the elements who 1 a.m mistrusted the people, refused *	to apply the principles of responsible government, and the dissatisfaction of the masses came to a head in 1837 with the result that we all know. It brought the

Rebellion, which was crushed with unnecessary severity.
In Lower Canada the same elements were playing the same havoc with the liberties of the people. Here a population of 65,000 people were left without their leaders who, after the cession of 1760, and especially after the Treaty of Paris on February 10, 1763, went back to France, and the people were left at the mercy of greedy speculators and profiteers who were granted the lands, and who dominated and ground down the people with the complicity of the governors. In 1774, the Quebec Act, which was framed by England to redress some of the grievances of the Canadians, was jeopardized in its effects by the rapacity of the same element. The Act of 1791, framed by Pitt, created a Legislative Council and, for the first time, an elective House. But that was again nullified by the despotism of Craig and his Tory favourites who controlled the Council, and a bitter fight ensued. The war of 1812 with the United States stopped politics for a while and again, as in 1775, the French Canadians fought the Americans and saved the colony for the British Crown. The victory of de Salaberry at Chateauguay was the most conspicuous fait d'armes of the whole war. But Toryism was only sleeping, and reforms necessary to the existence of responsible government, such as no taxation without representation, the independence of the judges, the control of subsidies, the exclusion of public employees from both Houses, the reform of the Legislative Council, the responsibility of the government members to the Legislative Council, were all refused. "At last, the famous Ninty-two Resolutions were formulated, embodying all these revendications, but were unfortunately rejected and, as in Upper Canada, the only logical sequence followed, the rebellion of 1837-38, with all its immediate unfortunate results. I said " immediate " unfortunate results purposely because, although one might judge severely the actual occasion of the uprising both in Upper and Lower Canada and condemn some deeds of the patriots, no one will deny now that responsible government and the political liberties we have enjoyed since 1848 are due in great part, if not altogether, to the patriotism and courage of William Lyon Mackenzie and Louis Joseph Papi-neau. Be that as it may, these simultaneous upheavals opened the eyes of Great Britain, and Lord Durham was sent to Canada with full powers to investigate and report respecting a form of government for the provinces. His report contained a detailed statement of the causes of the rebellion, recommended the introduction of responsible government and the union of Canada under a single government. He stated in that report that the two provinces were to be consolidated with the definite purpose of submerging the French Canadian nationality and ithis was so true that in the enlightened province of Ontario to which my hon. friend who has just taken his seat (Mr. Hocken) has referred, there is a school book on the histoiy of Canada which is read probably by every pupil in the schools. It is written by W. L. Grant and at page 208 I find the following:
What remedies did Durham propose for the evils which we have described?
1.	Extinction of the French nationality.-The first was that the French Canadian language and customs must be extinguished by being ringed round with a circle of English speaking majorities.
2.	The two provinces must be united in order to swamp the French.
In the report of Lord Durham itself there is the following:
I recommend that the alteration of the character of the province ought to be immediately entered upon, and firmly, though cautiously followed up; that, in every plan which may be adopted for the future management of Lower Canada, the first object ought to be that of making it an English province; and that, with this end in view, the ascendency would never again be placed in any hands but those of an English population as means of anglicizing French Canada. I advocate the gradual sub-stiution of the English for the French language. I have little doubt that the Frenchmen, when once placed by the legitimate course of events and the working of natural causes in a minority, would abandon their vain hopes of nationality.
The French Canadians took advantage of that doubt. The same school which in 1840 wanted to deprive a large part of the French Canadian population of their constitutional rights still exists as we can see from speeches, such as that which was made by the hon. gentleman who preceded me, in the year of our Lord 1920. Let me remind these gentlemen that like the soul of France, the soul of French Canada is immortal and like all just causes the stronger the attacks upon her the stronger will remain her surviving vitality. Lord Durham failed to realize, as my hon. friend from West Toronto (Mr. Hocken) fails to realize, the permanence and virtue of our nationalism. He returned to England and Poulett Thomson, who later became Lord Sydenham, replaced him as governor. He was entrusted with the duty of having the Act of Union ratified by the Canadians. It had passed the British Parliament but


Jacques Bureau: A regular war-time election !
Mr. ARCHAMBAUL-T: Then the Government added to this, most shameless corruption and patronage, and resorted to violence not only in Terrebonne but in other counties, and serious riots occurred in Upper Canada as well as in Lower Canada. Amongst the nineteen Unionists elected in Lower Canada', six were elected through violence in the counties of Beauharnois, Vaudreuil, Rouville, Montreal county, Chambly and Terrebonne; three through the disfranchisement of the suburbs, and seven were public employees. Robert Baldwin, who had been elected for York and Hastings, gave one of his seats to Lafontaine, a courtesy significant of the broadmindedness of the great Reformer, which was returned in 1843, when Baldwin was defeated in Hastings but was. offered and accepted the seat of Rimouski in the province of Quebec.
Sir, I shall not try to describe to you the administration of the Tory regime which remained in power until 1848,' with the exception of the short recess in 1843, but it was the most autocratic regime that ever ruled in Canada until the advent of the Union Government in 1-917. The Government of that day was always on the verge of collapse, but kept its supporters in line by promises of positions. Enormous sums


Mr. DOHERTY:: I am sure that the
hon. gentleman would not knowingly state an untruth. In so far as he states that a Minister of the Crown is drawing an emolument on account of his debility and feebleness, he is stating that which is not

true. ' I do not say that he knewvit was not true,, but he should know it now.


Joseph Archambault: According to the rules of the House I have to accept my hon. friend's statement, but everybody knows that there is a Minister of the Crown who drawls a pension as an ex-judge of the Province of Quebec. I may be mistaken, but if I am well informed a pension is given only to a servant of the public who is not in a position to retain his office on account of illness, debility or feebleness.


Charles Joseph Doherty: The hon. gentleman
will permit me? If he will read the statute he will see that a judge who has served fifteen years is as matter of right entitled to his pension, without regard to his state of health. I may add for the hon. gentleman's information that his late leader the Right Hon. Sir Wilfrid Laurier, who was Prime Minister when the pension he speaks of was granted, fully and openly and frankly admitted that to be the fact.


Joseph Archambault: However; the
Draper Government is the most anti-democratic and nefarious Government of that period. It has not the confidence of the people; it completely ignores Lower Canada so far as public works and positions are concerned, but keeps its partisans in line by promises and fear.
Are the terms "nefarious" and "antidemocratic" strong enough for the present Government,, which also is not representative of the people; which ignores the rights of the Province of Quebec in the matter of public works and positions, as is clearly shown by the appointment of James Murdock to the Board of Commerce, Hon. Lome Webster to the Senate, Sir William Hearst to the International Waterways Commission, and which holds its partisans in line by promises, as the warm refuge of the Railway Commission can easily prove?
Finally Draper resigns on account of ijl-health. There is a fight for his succession. Sherwood and Daly succeed in winning, but their existence is short. Lord Elgin, realizing that the Government has no longer the confidence of the people, dissolves the House; Lafontaine and Baldwin, representing Liberal principles dn their broadest sense, assume the reigns of Government.
With the persistent rumour that the Prime Minister will have to resign on account of ill-health comes also the rumour of a merry battle for his succession. Who will be the modern Daly and Sherwood? Will it be the best-dressed gentleman of the House, the
ame damnee of the financial ring of Toronto? Will it be the ever smiling and debutant Minister of Finance? Will it be the mysterious and silent exLiberal who enjoys a trip to Quebec or to New York once in a while? Will it be the High Executioner from the West, the hon. gentleman with telegraphic proclivities? Or last, will it be the unctuous sin-hound of Canada, the nursing sister of the League of Nations? I could not tell you, Mr. Speaker; I am not in the lap of the Gods. Will the amendment carry? Or, if it does not, as a similar amendment did not carry in 1847, will His Excellency the Governor General, following the footsteps of his predecessor, dissolve the House? I do not know. But I do know that the period of Government based on the mistrust of the people is due for a solid tumble; that the hour is pregnant with the reaction that inflexibly follows such periods, and that an opportunity will soon arise for the people of Canada to put again into practice the democratic and harmonious principles inspired by our departed loader, whose living spirit is still the undimmed guiding star of Canadian ideals.
Mr. JOHN A. MAHARG (Maple Creek): Mr. Speaker, I am not so sure that what I have to say will be altogether as entertaining or will stir up quite as much discussion as some of the speeches to which we have listened this afternoon. But it may stir up the minds of some of' those who are responsible for the fiscal policy of our country-I assure you that it will not stir up any racial or religious animosity.
I did not intend to take any part in tnis debate, but in view of remarks made by one or two of the ministers and also by one or two of the members on the other side, I decided that I would make a brief cd i-tributicn to the discussion.
The Minister of the Interior (Hon. Mr. Meighen), during the course of his address, saw fit at least to attempt to cast a discredit on the new movement which has been named for the time being by the member for Red Deer (Mr. M. Clark) the "National Progressive Party." The Minister endeavoured to the best of his ability to show that this was purely a class movement. He gave no attention whatever to the platform laid down by those who are responsible for the movement, claiming that the fact that it was inspired by the agriculturists proved, regardless of everything else, that it was a class movement. I was reminded of the words of one of our coloured porters addressed to a passenger who was insistent upon standing upon the platform of the railway coach.

He informed this gentleman that that platform was placed there to get in on and not to stand on. That is obviously the reason why the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Meighen) did not dwell at any length nor place much significance on our platform, as apparently platforms in the past have been used to get in on and not to stand on after the election was over. I can quite understand the minister's attitude and pardon him for entirely ignoring our platform.
I should like to direct the attention of the House to some of the remarks of the exMinister of Finance (Sir Thomas White). t The fact that the appearance of the exminister in this House has been somewhat spasmodic since he retired from a position in the Government seems rather strange to me, and possibly it may strike other hon. members similarly. The hon. member for Marquette (Mr. Grerar) and the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. M. Clark) had stirred things up somewhat, and evidently an S.O.S. call was sent out and the ex-minister appeared i on the scene very promptly. During his remarks he also endeavoured to make this appear as a class movement. In this respect, I am afraid he was not very successful, as some of his ideas advanced later on in regard to the future formation of parties somewhat lessened the force of his argument that the new movement was a class movement. I may touch on that matter a little later on. Possibly the most significant thing was the thought that was aroused in the minds of some as to just who was speaking while the ex-minister was addressing the House. You speak of class legislation, Sir, but I make the assertion that class representation was never more clearly placed before the House than by the ex-Minister of Finance yesterday.


Mr. GLASS:: Explain.


Mr. MAHARG:: Who spoke through the ex-Minister of Finance? Who spoke through the same gentleman in the year 1911, although he was not then a minister of the Crown? And what were the results' My answer to those questions is that the big interests of Canada spoke in this House at the time the ex-Minister of Finance was speaking. I am delighted that the hon. gentleman saw fit to come all this distance and give us one of his periodical visits and also give us a little bit of advertising. We have no objections to that whatever. The more advertising we get, the better we like it; we have nothing whatever to hide, and the more they advertise us, the better satisfied we shall be.
fMr. Mahare.l
What was the result after the 1911 election? I said that the Big Interests spoke at that time. In what condition did we find the country during the year 1913 and the early part of 1914? I do not wish to dwell on that as the subject is not a pleasant one; but we all have a very vivid recollection of conditions in the country at that time. And what would the result have been had not war broken out and made a change in conditions, a change that the fiscal policy of Canada could not make and, if continued, will not make in the future? The war is aver now, and I hope we are not going back into the same old rut, although it is quite evident from the speech of the ex-Minister of Finance that that is where he intends we shall go. The hon. gentleman said some very significant things, things that at least give us food for thought; and if I might judge from the expression on the faces of some hon. gentlemen very close to the Government on the other side, they were not entirely enamoured of some of his statements. I wonder if any particular S.O.S. call was sent out from this House. I wonder if those generally supposed to be on the lookout for things that will benefit the particular party that they support were very anxious for the. speech of the hon. gentleman. I venture to assert that it was not the astute politician refered to by way of telegrams a few minutes ago by the last speaker, nor the more astute politician who now occupies' the position of Minister of Immigration and Colonization (Mr. Calder) who sent out the S.O.S. call. Possibly they may have, but I am very doubtful. The hon. gentleman (Sir Thomas White) came, however; he delivered his message, and we are grateful to him for doing so.
The more light that is. thrown on the new movement the better we like it; and my request to them is that they will oil up the dynamoes at once, keep them well oiled, increase their voltage to the very limit of possibility, and then turn on the searchlight. Turn it on if you will in such a way that the labourer may get a view of what is in our platform. Turn it on also that the labourer's wife, when she goes to make her purchases, may see what is. contained in our platform. Turn it on in such a way, if I might just mention one or two articles, that she may be able to discover what is taking place, that she may see that the apples that she purchases for her kiddies are taxed very heavily, and that the grape fruit, a more expensive luxury which does not very often visit her table, is on the free list. Turn the searchlight on the silks

that enter our country and let her see the duty that is paid on them, and at the same time turn it on to the cotton goods so much required by the average person in Canada, so that she may see that the duty on that is almost double the duty on silk. You might go a little further and turn it on the boot and shoe business, also the hides which are the raw material which go into the manufacture of these boots and shoes. Let the facts appear in contrast with the statement made by the hon. member for Mus-koka (Mr. Peter McGibbon) who quoted from Hansard of the first session of 1919, stating that the duty paid on boots and shoes was just about equal to the duty paid on the raw material. If hides are not the raw material that goes into the manufacture of boots and shoes, I am under a great misapprehension as to what our boots and shoes are made of.


Mr. PETER McGIBBON (Muskoka):: Might I correct the hon. member? What I referred to was the leather that was brought in, not the hide?


John Archibald Maharg: Raw material is what the hon. member referred to, and if the House wished, I could easily quote Hansard to show that the words used were "raw material". The raw material for boots and shoes, if I am any judge, is hides. The hon. member for Muskoka (Mr. McGibbon) might also have pointed out that there was about $45,000,000 or $50,000,000 worth of Canadian boots and shoes sold in this country in each year. He took very good care to point out that there was less than $1,000,000 worth of duty collected on boots and shoes entering Canada and that ab'out $3,000 of duty was collected on the boots and shoes that the farmer and the labourer wore, meaning the cheaper class of boots and shoes. He described them as those with pegged soles, but I notice that the words "pegged soles" are not mentioned in Han sard, although the hon. gentleman used that expression. I should like the farmers and labourers in the electoral district of Muskoka to ask the hon. member when he next appears before them, if he ever should, if he does not think they might be permitted to wear a little better class of boot than those with pegged soles. I have worn this kind and I know what they are like; the pegs come through the soles continuously, and I did not wear them any longer than 1 had to, and I hope I shall never wear them again. The hon. member for Muskoka also took a fling at the hon. member for Marquette (Mr. Crerar) and criticised him for making what he considered inaccurate statements to the House. He objected to what the hon. member for Marquette said with regard to the amount of duty collected on articles of consumption, and proceeded to enumerate certain articles other than articles of consumption and gave the duty collected on them. In his enumeration he included fruit, both green and dried, and nuts. I can only say that either his knowledge as to what articles of consumption consists of is very faulty, or else he is trying to place the hon. member for Marquette in a false position. He even went a little further in giving these figures and mentioned animal and vegetable products such as furs, feathers, etc. Now that word "etcetera " may cover a great deal, and if it does in proportion to the number of articles which I regard as articles of consumption, but which evidently the member for Muskoka does not, then I think his criticism of the hon. member for Marquette was very much uncalled for.
The ex-Minister of Finance (Sir Thomas White) evidently had some particular object in coining here. This is the second visit/ he has paid us at intervals since his retirement from the Cabinet. Since he resigned from the Government he appears to have gone into seclusion, at all events from political life. However, he breaks that seclusion to a certain extent and the Great War Veterans were the first, if I may use the expression, to smoke him out of his lair. Things were getting pretty warm here last session. A committee had been appointed to inquire into the possibility of giving further aid towards the re-establishment of the returned men. That committee had several different organizations before them, one of which was the Great War Veterans Association, who submitted a plan to the committee which evidently members of the Government thought it would be just a little difficult to get over, and called for playing their very .best cards.
2	a.m. Consequently the ex-Minister of Finance was called before the committee and the remarquable thing about his visit was not his appearance, but what he told the committee, at that time and what he told the House yesterday. The inference to be drawn from his evidence before the committee was'this: That the financial condition of the country was so critical that it would me impossible to raise further sums than those already provided for the re-establishment of the soldier. Now what did he say yesterday when addressing this House? Here are his exact words-unrevised Hansard, Page 201. He

is referring to a statement made by the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. M. Clark):
My hon. friend says: Your currency is inflated. It is less inflated than the currency of any country in the world; less inflated than that of the United States now.	,
Again on page 202 he says:
No country in the world-including Great Britain that my hon. friend so properly holds up as an example-where the Victory Loan securities stood at par, or above, at the end of the war except Canada-not one. In the United States, 90-92.
He might have gone a little 'further and told this House what interest the United States are paying on the bonds they sold. He might have told us that the rate of interest of a bond bears some relation to its selling price, and that the highest rate of interest the United States bonds bear, if I am properly informed, is 4^4 per cent, and the majority of their issues bore a less interest rate than that.
On page 202 of unrevised Hansard the ex-Minister of Finance has something further to say with regard to the remarks of the hon. member for Red Deer.
Unless my hon. friend the Minister of Finance (Sir Henry Drayton) had taken the steps which he recently took, Great Britain would sell back to us or would offer in our markets the securities of our municipalities-of our provinces, the securities guaranteed by the Dominion and by the provinces that we sold to her years ago and which have been years overseas-she would have sold and continued to sell those here until our exchange dropped to the level of sterling exchange; that is what would have happened.
In one page our Dominion securities are such and such, and on the next page they are entirely different, and we are told that if a further flotation of bonds had been made they would at least have gone down to the level of sterling. A little further down we have the hon. gentleman's answer to the criticism of my hon. friend from Red Deer of the floating of loans to such a large extent in New York. The ex-Minister of Finance refers to Great Britain's action in regard to the floating of loans in New York as a reason why it was good business for Canada to seek the New York market. He does not say why Great Britain floated these loans. He did not tell this House that Great Britain had lent to her Allies an amount far in excess of the total amount of her borrowings on the New York market. He might have told us that there was something else that Great Britain did while she was borrowing on the New York market. He might have told the House that Great Britain was also raising a large percentage of the money required for her war expenfMr. Maharg. ]
diture by direct taxation. If he had compared what was being raised by direct taxation under his adminstration with what was being done by the British Government he would have found that the amount that we were raising was as nothing compared with what Great Britain was doing in this respect. If there is one thing that we do dislike in this House it is a failure to state the whole of the facts. At page 200 the hon. gentleman deals with the question of direct taxation in regard to excess profits and there he' says:
Supposing we had appealed to the farmers to produce all they could for the armies overseas and the civilian population behind them, supposing we had asked the manufacturers to produce all they could and had asked the munition manufacturers to turn out all the munitions they could and, at the same time, ' suppose we had told them that we were going to. take away all their profits? They are a pretty patriotic lot of men. I ask this House- you are all sensible business men

 would you have got the same production in the country and in the factory that you did get? You would not.
That would have been all right, but he goes a little further and says:
Further than that if you took away all the money that the producing classes had made, or the greater part of it, what position would those classes be in should there come the depression which always follows war?
What does he mean by the greater part of their profits? It means that you would at least have to take 51 per cent of their profits, or over 50 per cent. What position would they have been in if a greater portion of their profits had been taken?
I will answer that by saying that if he had taken all their profits their position would at least have .been as good as was that of the great proportion of the returned men when they came back. If he had taken the greater portion of their profits their position would have been much better than that of the great majority of returned men. I do not think his argument is very sound. He said something about slander. He made the statement that the two parties had been slandered by the charge that they had betrayed the farmer. The word "slander" is not a very nice one to use, and I doubt whether I would have used it if the exMinister of Finance had not introduced it. But I say that the statement of the exMinister of Finance is a slander upon the patriotic people of Canada who remained behind while the boys went overseas to do the fighting. Was it the expected profits that caused the boys to go overseas and do their bit? I think not. They could not expect to realize very great profits out of

$1.10 a day. I do not think that was the incentive that took them overseas. But if we are to accept the words of the exMinister of Finance the incentive for those of us who remained at home was that we should be permitted to make nice, handsome profits, that we might produce. It seems to be an absurd argument to be used by a member of this House, and it is an insult to the people of Canada who remained at home and in a patriotic way did all they could to help to win the war. The inference can only be that our patriotism was largely of the lips and not of the heart; otherwise, we should have been prepared to carry on without the hope of making large profits. I would like to say a word or two about what the policy of the ex-Minister has done for Canada. One of the things was to build up tremendous fortunes to be loaned to the Government at nice, comfortable rates of interest. We have evidence of that everywhere throughout the country. We do not need to go far afield to find it.
The ex-Minister of Finance went further and possibly the most significant statement that he made was that the protective principle in our tariff must remain. His words were something to this effect: Do not think for a moment that the people of Ontario are going to be satisfied with a tariff for revenue only. The system of protection has to remain. That is a very brief statement, but there is very much implied when you read between the lines. His statement during the first session of 1919 was that we must have a tariff to raise revenue.
blow, Sir. something has intervened and it is said we must have the tariff for protection- in fact the hon. member for Mus-koka (Mr. McGibbon) made the statement last night that it was a tax for the protection of industry. It seems rather strange, Mr. Speaker, that we should be compelled to pay a tax in order that our industries may flourish.
In conclusion, there is just one more statement the hon. gentleman (Sir Thomas White) made which is of considerable significance at this particular time, viz., that a new Liberal-Conservative party should be formed. What does that name imply? Can you have such a thing as a Liberal-Conservative party? I doubt it very much. If my interpretation of what Liberals claim to be the meaning of Liberalism is correct, it seems to me that such a thing would be absolutely impossible and that the name would only be used for the purposes of deception. I cannot understand how you can have a Liberal-Conservative party, and I
would like to ask the ex-Minister of Finance in what way the Liberal-Conservative party-if you can have such a thing-would differ from the party that we have been pleased to name the new and National Progressive party. The new Liberal-Conservative party can only be composed of former Liberals and Conservatives; it cannot be the old Conservative party and it cannot be the Liberal party, consequently it must be a third party. Yet the ex-Minister of Finance told us yesterday in the early part of his speech that third parties could not survive; although towards the conclusion of his remarks he proposed what in substance-if it could be brought into existence-means nothing more or less than an additional party.	[DOT]
I would repeat that I am delighted that the ex-Minister of Finance saw fit to come here and direct so much attention to those of us who occupy the cross-benches. It suits us very well, and the harder our opponents hit us the better pleased w* shall be. Let me close with this statement: The harder you are thrown the higher you will bounce. Don't think of the blackened eye, nor yet of the fact that you got licked, but how did you fight, and why.



SUPPLY.

[Stage Direction]
On motion of Sir Henry Drayton (Minister of Finance) it was ordered that this House do to-morrow, resolve itself into a Committee to consider of the Supply to be granted to His Majesty.

[Stage Direction]
On motion of Sir Henry Drayton (Minister of Finance) it was ordered that this House do to-morrow, resolve itself into a Committee to consider of the Ways and Means for raising the Supply to be granted to His Majesty.
Right Hon.   S@: Mr. Speaker, with the
consent of the House I beg to move that when the House adjourns to-day it do adjourn until three o'clock this afternoon. .


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: This motion can only
be entertained by unanimous consent.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
On motion of Sir George Foster the House adjourned at 3 a.m., Wednesday.
Wednesday, March 10, 1920.